World's Best Assassin
by Pat Squared
Summary: What happens to Ron Stoppable after he enters Global Justice? Because no one seems to remember his name, Ron is the perfect spy. What happens when Ron's role start taking over his life? Rated M for violence, death, language, and sexual references.
1. Dreams

This is a work of fan fiction and not for profit. I do not own any rights to Kim Possible as they belong to Disney.

**World's Best Assassin**

**I - Dream**

**By Pat Squared**

* * *

_If you like it,_

_If you hate it,_

_Please write a review,_

_Because sharing something with the world_

_Is no fun_

_If no one says thank you._

Ron Stoppable woke up with a scream.

The dream was so sick-wrong.

A blond-haired killer with facial freckles put three rounds into his wife's skull. The killer merely dropped the pistol on the body. The killer walked away as if he was just the FedEx guy dropping off another parcel on a delivery route.

Ron Stoppable tried everything to stop the nightmares. Working out until exhaustion did not work. Taking strong drink until he almost died from alcohol poisoning did not work. Even shooting drugs into his veins did not work.

No matter what he did, the nightmares came anyways.

Every night, Ron subconscious witnessed his alter-ego killing someone he loved. Even the dreams about monkeys were not as disturbing as the nightmares.

Ron _loved_ his wife.

Twelve years and four kids later, Kim was still the only woman in his heart.

Kim was safely at home watching the kids and working for Global Justice as the Director of Operations and Training. Her expanding girth told the world that Kim and Ron would have a fifth child in a couple months.

Ron always wanted to be there at the hospital when Kim delivered their children. However, the bad guys seem to frustrate this simple desire. They instinctively acted up when he wanted to be home. Ron always ended up missing the birth of his kids.

Ron hated Moscow. He hated the Russian winters. He hated the Russians most of all.

Despite two generations since the fall of the Soviet Union, the mark of centuries of autocratic rule still lingered in the air and upon the psyches of the masses. There was a hint of fear and self-defeat in the faces of the masses and a multitude of predators looking for a free lunch.

After college, the powers that be at Global Justice selected Ron Stoppable to work as an undercover agent in Central and Eastern Europe. Unlike most other Global Justice Agents, Ron Stoppable never had an official or diplomatic cover. No one outside a few senior Global Justice executives knew what Ron's assignment really was. Everyone else back at HQ just thought that he was some kind of courier.

Ron worked where only an agent in the shadows could be effective.

No one seemed to remember Ron's face or name. Only two of the villains he fought in his youth ever remembered his name. The world forgot he existed.

Ron had the face-like face and average build that allowed him to disappear into crowds almost anywhere in the world.

The phone rang. Ron Stoppable snapped out of his dark mood.

Vladimir Petrovich Rasputin was on the line. Rasputin, Boiarskii's factor, discretely ran Boiarskii's interests in Eastern Europe.

"Vasilii Alexovich Boiarskii, there is social club at corner of _Kuybysheva _and _Rybnyypereulok_. Name is Den of Hungry Wolf. Tell fat doorman...you are old friend of Maria Natasha. You went to school with her in America. Be on your good ... your best behavior, Maria does not suffer fools."

"Vladimir, stop the native speech routine. You might have been born in St. Petersburg, but the folks at the _Federalnaya Sluzhba Bezopasnosti _(Russian Foreign Security Bureau) taught you how to speak New York style. I know about your six year field study. You have six kids and five wives."

"Well coz, go give yo'self a flaming enema. It's seven kids and one wife."

Ron laughed, "That's much better, you bastard. You aren't such a disgrace to New York cabbies anymore. Tell Maria that I will there in two hours. I fought three rounds with a she-bear last night. The horny bitch wouldn't take no for an answer until she mauled me good."

"Liar! Your palms wouldn't be so hairy if you didn't go wanking off your sorry excuse for a dick all the time you bugger. I will be waiting nearby with two boys. They are _wonks_."

"I know that Vlad. They can't back girl scout troop at cookie sale."

"If things go bad, you know what to do?"

"Get money. Get wife and kids. Take first flight out of East Block to New York City. I personally hand your wife damned letter."

Ron nodded and suddenly remembered that he was on a cell phone.

_Christ, I'm slipping. I have been spacing out way too much._

Cell phones were not a secure way to talk in the land of the suicidal, alcohol poets.

"Sorry buddy, thoughts of the family."

"That's why we are all here. Without family, man is nothing. Just remember to shave your palms before you leave. Maria does not have a taste for uncultured barbarians."

Vladimir was Ron's only friend and backup in this God forsaken country. He was Ron's only link to Global Justice. Vladimir was the only soul in Europe who knew that Boiarskii was really Ron Stoppable. Global Justice's Senior Sentinel of the Central and Eastern Europe would be an unknown to the world.

Russia had changed since the glory days of the former Soviet Union. However, things did not change all that much in the Wild, Wild East.

The Russians took to the philosophy if you can't beat them, join them.

The average Muscovite was more capitalistic than any trader on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange. The good thing for Ron was that most of them were lousy gamblers who believed that they could out bluff anyone. Ron always won enough to cover the bills and stash away some get out of town funds.

Ron knew that Global Justice was stingy with funds.

To be stingy with bribes was as obvious as wearing a cape and your underwear on the outside of your pants. The prize for which is having various parts of your anatomy ripped off during an enthusiastic interrogation session.

Ron learned early on to pad his expense reports and under-report the take from his _authorized illicit activities_. He did not trust the bookkeepers at Global Justice to properly fund and maintain an escape network for his agents.

Ron took it upon himself to protect his people. Twice, his agents' cover stories were compromised. If he had not broken the rules, the agents would be photos on Global Justices memorial wall. Instead, they were reassigned to work at Headquarters training the next generation of agents.

Ron staggered into the shower.

He hated this assignment. He hated this life of deception and intrigue. He could not call home or even utter a word of what he was doing in this hotel. All the hotels were bugged courtesy of the old KGB and the locals kept up that tradition.

Slowly, the hot water did its job. The chemically induced mental fog was thinned out. Ron was fully conscious and ready for the meeting. It took three months of gamesmanship to arrange this meeting. Not even in the Wild, Wild East, does an arms merchant not go out and sell military grade biological weapons without checking out the buyer.

Vasilii Alexovich Boiarskii was the ideal buyer for such contraband.

From AK-47's to attack helicopters and hazardous chemicals, Boiarskii dealt it all.

Boiarskii was the man that every third world dictator called friend.

Every western intelligence organization had dealings with Boiarskii.

As an arms merchant, Boiarskii bought and sold illegal or hard to get commodities worldwide. Arms and trade embargos simply serve to pad his bottom line. His merchandise starred in most of the world's civil conflicts in the past seven years. He was worth more than the GDP of most nations.

It was a resume that any arms merchant would trade both their nuts for.

Ron's problem was the Vasilii Boiarskii was really Ron Stoppable.

To keep the legend alive, Ron did things that troubled his conscience and fueled his nightmares. He wanted to stop. Vasilii fueled wars. Ron wanted to stop being Vasilii.

If Ron stopped, the intelligence would dry up. The bad guys would be another step ahead of justice. If Ron quit, many more innocent folks would suffer.

The cold equation was simple. Save one man's sanity. Save the world. Six billion souls was more important that one man's. Ron was expendable. Ron lit another cancer-stick in celebration.

Vasilii Boiarskii was everything Ron was not. Cool, calculating, cunning, a bottom-line kind of guy with a taste for pretty flesh and gambling. Boiarskii had developed a reputation as someone you don't want to cross.

The reputation was fertilized by the blood.

No one crossed Boiarskii.

Even Keyser Soze would be envious of Boiarskii.

Boiarskii personally did his wet-work. Family, friends, and even the family dog suffered a slow, painful death.

Boiarskii was the classic psychopathic merchant of death.

Nicholas Cage could not play a more cold-hearted bastard.

Ron checked his _Yarygin_ MP-446 'Viking' 9x19mm pistol. The round was in the chamber. The only safety was his trigger finger.

Only pussies and idiots relied on mechanical safeties.

There were seventeen rounds in the magazine and one live one in the chamber. Two spare magazines loaded with 147 grain jacketed hollow points were places in the magazine pouch. Same load as perfected by the US Federal Bureau of Investigation. These bullets link Boiarskii to America. However, Boiarskii was rumored to be educated in the West.

Ron depended on three lethal weapons. Boiarskii reputation for ruthlessness, Ron's mind, and a pen injector filled with 7-micrograms of a nasty poison that who look like a heart attack to any medical examiner.

Unlike many other _businessmen_ peddling arms in the world, Boiarskii seemingly ran alone.

The contempt for danger added to Vasilii's mystique ...the mystique that prevented Ron's internal organs from being imperforated by copper clad lead projectiles. No one in their sane minds would cross Vasilii Boiarskii.

Boiarskii walked out of his suite.

Sergei Kantorovich was waiting for him.

Ron hated Sergei. Sergei was corrupt, vile, and enjoyed all the vices that the _diky-diky vostok_ or Wild, Wild East could offer. Nevertheless, Sergei was Boiarskii number one arms procurer in Eastern Europe. Sergei was one of the many scroungers that Boiarskii kept on the payroll.

"What is on the menu?"

Sergei rose and bowed to his benefactor. Ron nodded.

"Someone lit a fire at army armory near _Gdansk_."

"How is that suppose to interest me?" Vasilii replied.

With Sergei, there were no accidents or coincidences. Vasilii knew that Sergei arranged for the fire. The rat would take an extra cut from the seller on top of the commission that Vasilii paid him. However, dealing with Sergei was worth the extra cash. Sergei was a crook, but one smart enough to know that you make more in the long run by playing by the rules of the underground.

Sergei gulped.

"My man, he called me. He said that he got 5.56 NATO KBSWZ 04 Beryl assault rifles before fire destroy records."

Boiarskii motioned Sergei to continue.

"They were reserve stock for Polish Army. Only test fired, cleaned, and put in storage. All are new. There are four rifles per case. Two hundred fifty cases time four rifles is 1,000 rifles...enough to arm a battalion. Each comes with cleaning kit, sling, six magazines per rifle, and American-NATO spec two point five power optical gun sights already mounted. His price is two thousand Euros per case if you buy fifty cases - One thousand seven hundred per case if you buy all. However, it is all carry out."

Boiarskii looked his scrounger in the eye.

"Tell him ... tell your man that I will pay him in high quality diamonds. His total price is four hundred twenty five thousand Euros. He gets one million US dollars worth of diamonds if the goods are in Rotterdam, ready for sea shipment, upon inspection. The deal is good for two weeks tops. If he agree, we meet in diamond exchange Friday, two weeks from this Friday. Safe location for all to meet as no one can bring any weapons into the exchange. Tell him that Samuel Bergman from Tel Aviv will hold the crow and personally will value diamonds."

"Sir, what about..."

Ron cleared his throat as he play the role. He had to be decisive. He could not afford to look weak in front of the sharks.

"Columbia, _por favor mi amigo_."

Ron rubbed his cold hands.

"Vladimir will make the calls. Our associates in Bogota will fax over end user certificates in forty eight hours or I will pass the deal onto some old friends of mine in east Africa who want to sell more arms to two opposing tribes of _shits_."

His dark brown eyes locked into the vile soul of the rat.

"Don't get drunk yet, my friend. We drink tonight; lift skirts. We will see if there is any virgins still in Moscow. We will live like real men. _Damn Americans_...we have no real man for leader. How have we fallen so far? Catherine the Great had more balls than our current president. Kerensky the _Eunuch_ bows too much to the West."

Sergei was a rat. But, Sergei was Boiarskii's rat. He knew that disappointing Boiarskii would be bad.

The last employee who disappointed Boiarskii became a poster child for not mixing bootleg vodka and blowtorches.

Ron walked down to the car.

It took 24 years.

The Russians got smart and finally allowed the Germans to buy the old Lada manufacturing plant. The Germans used Czech subsidiary to avoid arousing nationalistic protest. There were no more Fiat clones. Instead, the Skoda Motor Works now were making performance cars on par with BMW and Audi.

Boiarskii's car was a three year-old, white, Skoda 450K.

Under the muscovite exterior was a masterpiece of Teutonic engineering.

The Skoda 450K was a six-speed, four wheel drive, supercharged rally car mated with Japanese electronics, and a touch of Bond.

Q did not mount any rocket launchers or machine guns.

However, the car was ready for a tour anywhere in hell.

Bullet resistant glass and blast panels would protect the occupant from any land mine.

Biometric lockouts, electrified door handles, and anti-carjacker flame device ensure that only he could access the car's exotic feature.

Two hidden gun compartments each with the local knock-off of the Heckler & Koch G36K assault carbine and six extra magazines ensure that he was ready to rock and roll. The smoke generator, oil spray, hidden police lights, siren, covert ram bumpers, and stun lights were the cherry on top of the banana split.

Boiarskii's car suited his needs just fine.

Ron swiped his finger on the sensor. The glove box opened.

Inside were the registration paperwork, local and international driver's licenses, and appropriate permits. What was not legal were a 9 x 19 mm Parabellum Fort Model 1300 _Automaticheskij Pistolet Tataryn_ (Ukrainian knock-off of the GLOCK 18 fully automatic pistol with a 1300 rpm cyclic rate), three loaded thirty-three round magazines loaded with man-stoppers (Federal 147-grain Hydra-Shok Jacketed Hollow Points), and a bottle of green pills that did not come from any doctor.

It was the green pills that he sought.

Ron hated himself.

He cursed his weakness every time he took another pill.

However, the pills kept Ron sane. The pills kept him awake. The pills kept him from having the nightmares. The pills allowed Ron to live with the monster that lived inside him.

Ron swallowed two pills. He vowed to end the addiction.

This will be the last time. I will stop being a junkie.

However, he knew that he would use more tonight, more tomorrow, more until the bottle ran out. That would be his hint to quit popping the little green pills for a while.

In three weeks, Global Justice would run him through a medical examination. Ron would purged himself for the week prior to returning home. No one back home could know of his need to chemically silence the screams inside his head.

Ron would take this secret to his early grave.


	2. Decision

**World's Best Assassin**

**II – Decision**

**By Pat Squared****

* * *

**

If you like it,

If you hate it,

Please write a review,

Because sharing something with the world

Is no fun

If no one says thank you.

* * *

Ron looked at the sleeping form next to him with self-loathing.

Boiarskii had picked up a practitioner of the world's oldest profession as was his habit.

However, this one was younger than the normal twenty something year olds that Vasilii normally rented.

The girl he just sleep with last night was only a few years older than Ron's oldest child, Melody Anne Stoppable.

Ron looked down at the snoring form. Her name was Svetlana and she had the same soft, dark eyes and blond hair as Melody. Svetlana was a virgin until Vasilii Boiarskii paid three thousand euros to a madam.

Boiarskii had to taunt Ron by deflowering his daughter's virtual twin.

Ron used to believe that the ends justified the means with which Ron Stoppable combated the forces of chaos.

Ron did what had to be done to accomplish the mission, no matter how brutal or repugnant the act was.

Now he was left empty with the knowledge that the only difference between him and his adversaries was the fact that Ron was still haunted by a guilty conscience.

The drugs, drinks, and warm flesh could not hold back the guilt forever.

Boiarskii was supposed to be an alter ego, a cover identity. Boiarskii was to be put in the proper mental filing cabinet when Ron did not need Boiarskii's reputation.

However today, Ron could no longer identify were Ronald Dean Stoppable end and Vasilii Boiarskii began.

Maria Natasha was a worthy scion to her ancestral lines of secret police interrogators and Russian black marketers. Her red hair and fiery temper was the shell that covered a cunning mind.

Vasilii Boiarskii performed his role and kept Ron Stoppable from having his sorry existence terminated during the negotiations. Three days of strong drink, debauchery, and gambling earn Vasilii more street credit and a shipment of military-grade biological weapons. Maria earned more hard currency.

The deal was struck in the typical Russian manner. Yelling and screaming about cheating, both sides played up a crescendo until both side said, _Da_ and drank down another shot of Russian antifreeze to seal the deal.

Ron Stoppable now was paying the price of Vasilii Boiarskii's vices.

The slender arms of the young call girl enwrapped his frame. In the old days, the Soviet Union would have turned her into a ballet dancer. Today she was a commodity.

The child slept like his child safe in the knowledge that Vasilii was not a beater like the ones who took the virginities of the other orphanage girls during the breaking in sessions. Her attractive looks ensured that the child would be _saved_ for a connoisseur of nymphet flesh, read pedophile.

Vasilii was a favored client of her madam and would get first option on fresh meat. The child that slept in his bed was one of her newer ones, not yet hardened to the game. Ron knew that she would have to work if he tossed her out, so Vasilii rented her for the next couple weeks.

Ron wanted to end it all, but couldn't figure out how without Kim finding out about Vasilii and the means Vasilii used to accomplice Ron's missions. Kim still believed in the innocent Ron that she knew back in Middleton, that she almost rescued twelve years ago. His kids believed that he was some virtuous warrior righting wrongs.

_Why did the hero have to wear white?_

When the hero had to fight the villain, white would only make the stains on his soul more visible. There were to many stains on Ron's soul to even contemplate.

Ron turned on the television to _Deutsche Welle_, the German language 24 hour answer to the BBC, CNN, and Fox News. Award winning anchor, Freda Schlosser was in Moscow's Red Square breathlessly reporting upon a murder. He missed the beginning of the report. However based upon the questions asked by the commentator back in Germany, Ron quickly realized that the victim was a very important Russian politician.

It was President Alexander Kerensky.

All that was on the news was that some assassin decapitated the victim and his bodyguards. The Russian security forces were on alert as the Russian government firgured out who was going to be the new power.

Ron turned off the television.

Global Justice would want answers and Ron had to use Vasilii Boiarskii's underworld contacts to get them.

He turned over and grabbed his cell phone.

Twenty hours and hundred of euros in cell phone bills later, Ron had nothing.

There were no large movements of currency in the _crow_ market.

No one was moving enough cash to be paying for a contract killing of this magnitude and no professional assassin would do the job without some guarantee of payment.

The Russian mob was not dumb enough to do this kind of hit.

Concepts such as civil rights and proper procedure never made it in this land of beauty and harshness.

The Russian security forces still played by the same rules as the old KGB, and they would slam down on whatever Russian mob family they merely suspect had any tangential involvement in the assassination.

No amount of hard currency would get the Russian security forces to back off on this investigation.

Ron needed the information that was coming across Kim's desk right now. However, to do so will he was in Europe would violate his cover. Worse, he would be recalled and they will find out about his drug habit if he called. Everything he suffered will be for naught.

Svetlana just sat in the corner watching her new boss work the phones contacting his rats. In between the calls, Vasilii bought out her _contract_ with the madam and told her to sit tight.

Ron/Vasilii rubbed his throbbing forehead muttering epitaphs in English, German, Russian, and Yiddish. He would have to cut his stay in mother Russian short and personally visit his contacts in central Europe and London. Someone had provided funding for this kind of operation, even if the hit-man did the job for free. He would have to follow the money. However, he needed some point to start the hunt.

Ron curled into bed mentally exhausted. Ron had to make plans. Vladimir would handle things in Moscow and ensure that Global Justice would get his progress reports.

Ron awoke the following afternoon. Svetlana was hugging him. Worse, Svetlana had the same look in her eyes that his wife did.

Vasilii Boiarskii could torture a family, sit down, and eat their borsht while they were bleeding to death and their bodies were in the throes of death.

However, Ron could not hurt those who depended on him. That is the only reason for his being here. Now, Svetlana needed him.

To Svetlana, he would be her lover. He knew that he could not bring Svetlana home to the wife and kids.

_Hi honey, here is our new daughter and my latest sexual conquest!_

Ron could only imagine how that scene would play out. Having a wife with a JD and sixteen styles of kung fu mean that he would be beaten up physically before she would sick the the cops and lawyerson his ass. Then he would have to spend the rest of his life in prison dodging convicts who would line up to shank him.

_I would probably not even resist._

The thought was so wrong. Kim would never forgive him, his kids would know that their daddy was some sick pedophilic bastard, and Svetlana would be blamed for the things that Vasilii did to her.

Yet, he could not leave Svetlana behind like a used condom.

Svetlana didn't have a home.

Svetlana was not vicious enough to carve out her share of a criminal empire.

Ron had to make a decision.

Ron would have to give Svetlana a family, even if that family was a son of a bitch named Vasilii Boiarskii.

"Svetlana, I am man with many names, many stories, no comrades, and many enemies. There have been many women, a wife, and few kids. I have no place ... no place I can call home since I was child in Estonia. All I can give you is place to rest, to learn, to grow. Svetlana, you have to make decision now, free will.

"One, you stay in Moscow, I give you small flat, and monthly allowance. Other than that, you are on your own.

"Two, you come with, be my apprentice, learn to play greatest game. However, it will be difficult and once you accept there will be no going back to Russia."

A kiss answered the question. Svetlana slid out of her little black dress and told Ron that she would forever be Vasilii Boiarskii's.


	3. Trail of Crumbs

**World's Best Assassin**

**III – Trail of Crumbs**

**By Pat Squared

* * *

**

Svetlana wondered what her new life with Vasilii Boiarskii would be like.

She looked out the window of the aircraft. Below were the clouds.

As a child, she would spend hours in the park with her mother trying to get a glimpse of the angels and saints playing in the heavens.

Svetlana replayed the events of the past week.

Twelve times, she _comforted _Vasilii. As she did so she realized that behind the brutal legend was the world's loneliest man.

Vasilii was a haunted man who needed someone to be by his side.

At fourteen, Svetlana wondered why Vasilii picked her.

Vasilii Boiarskii was Vasilii Boiarskii.

While he was not handsome like a movie star, he was handsome enough to attract a shy girl's attention with a smile.

He could buy all of Russia if he so chose. In public, he could blend into the masses. Yet with a curt word or gesture, he could dominate any social setting. Any gold-digger would be proud to be his woman.

Svetlana wondered what made her so special that Vasilii would lift her up from the filthy streets of Moscow and the short drug and alcohol driven life of a prostitute.

She was attractive enough to get a higher street price, but she was not supermodel material like many other women seeking Boiarskii's patronage.

They say she was smart, but she had not seen the inside of a school room in two years.

She could not give him anything in terms of wealth or connection – Svetlana was just an orphan with no family connection.

Fate just put her in Boiarskii's arms when he needed someone to just hold him.

Svetlana saw that Boiarskii was driven by the demons of duty and uncertainty. From the calls, she knew that he was not the lone wolf that the other said he was. Boiarskii was more of a scout who silently trailed the herd while the other wolves move into position. Every _vor_ from the old generation claimed to be a spy for the old KGB, but Vasilii was the first spy that she ever saw.

Unlike the Englishman James Bond, Vasilii did not have wonderful adventures, but lived a life in the shadows fearing that someone would discover his secrets. He did not poof in and out. He was just a man and fate chose her to be the one to help him.

Boiarskii was a man marked by fate to be more than a man. He could fight with weapons, but the real weapon was his ability to do whatever had to be done. However using the weapon had a price – Boiarskii was hurt, hurt in a way that only on who suffered a great lost could understand.

Boiarskii was a marked man.

Many in and outside of Russia would pay handsomely for the small tidbits of information that Svetlana now processed about Boiarskii and his affairs. However, she could no more betray Vasilii as she could step out of the plane and walk boldly up to the heavens.

Svetlana looked over at the man who changed her life.

Vasilii was traveling in his public role as Gregory Zhukov, a BBC field producer. He was busy, rapidly typing his report into his notebook computer. Svetlana tried to follow along, but the screen was scrolling too fast for her to read the Roman letters.

"Uncle Gregory, may I ask what you are typing?"

Vasilii smile, hit a couple keys. Showing the child how to use the scroll wheel, Vasilii handed the computer over.

Svetlana suppressed her anxiety. Such things were not for one like her.

"Take it," Vasilii reassured her, "It's yours. You will need it for your classes."

"Classes?" The last time Svetlana saw the inside of a school room was the day her parents were killed when the Chechens bombed the Metro two years ago.

"Yes, Svetlana. In our world, there are some who live on muscle, wealth, or family connections. However, if fate turns against them, they will fall without a means to reclaim their status. Knowledge, skill, and work is what matters. Fate can sting you, but it can not take away what is inside."

Vasilii pointed to her head and her heart.

"Svetlana, it was your heart that bound me to you." Vasilii whispered.

"Sex is of the loins. It rises and fades quickly. The heart is what remains when loins fade. The heart is wonderful. Without it no one is alive. Without someone to share it with, life is merely consuming and fighting until we die."

Svetlana noted the haunted look in Vasilii's eyes. The lost was something of the heart, no the soul. She wanted to hold him, to let Vasilii know that he had someone willing to share his heart.


	4. Kim Senses Something Wrong

**World's Best Assassin**

**IV – Kim Senses Something Wrong**

**By Pat Squared

* * *

**

Kim Stoppable set down her reading glasses and rubbed her sore eyes.

Staring at the computer screen, Kim tried to assimilate raw data into something coherent. Sure she got a finished report from Global Justice's Intelligence Directorate, but she wanted to see Ron's original report.

However, only someone that really knew Ron caught all the nuances.

Ron's report was too matter of fact. It was as if Ron was too weary to make some sense of the world around him leaving the work up to the reader. It was as if Ron was replaced by a court stenographer typing up a summery of a video.

For the couple past years, Ron seemed exhausted, drained every time he returned home.

Many times, he would just crawl into bed and cuddle. It would take two or three days for him to be able to assume his role in the bedroom and emotionally connect with his family. In his sleep, he would whimper like a child and wake up in a sweat several times a night.

Something was eating Ron up, but Ron would not open up to her.

He deliberately kept his work separate from his home life saying that that last thing he wanted was to make Kim cry. He kept it all inside and it was eating him up like a cancer.

Kim knew that Ron was always holding something back, even from his reports. Kim knew that he occasionally handle situations off the books.

Kim could not help her husband.

The girl who could once do anything, solve any situation felt as if she was being washed along with the tides of uncertainty.

She should have been out in the field with Ron, but everyone knew the face of Kim Possible, world famous teen superhero.

Her name and image struck fear into the heart of criminals.

However, having a famous face was no good when one is trying to infiltrate the criminal world. This left Ron was alone in the field.

Worst, Ron was too effective to be replaced.

His networks allowed Kim and the senior hierarchy of Global Justice to head off wars and genocide before it even happened. Pulling him off, even to train the next generation of secret agents would result in more strife and blood shed. Ron was indispensable. He was the trusty tool that Global Justice used to cut the tumors of the world out the body of society. However with each use, the blade was being worn thinner and thinner. Kim knew that if Ron was allowed to stay too long, he would be ground down and broken.

Besides, Ron kept her pregnant. It wasn't planned, but Kim, like her mother, was very fertile. A little time together in the same bed, and she would end up pregnant again.

Knowing not was else to do, Kim make a phone call. Ron was hurting too much inside and unable, unwilling to share his anxiety with her. He made it a point to evade Global Justice's resident psychologist. This time, he would go.


	5. Ron Visit Home

**World's Best Assassin**

**V – Visit Back Home**

**By Pat Squared

* * *

**

Ronald Dean Stoppable walked into Global Justice headquarters a defeated man.

All his efforts have yield nothing on the killer.

It seemed was as if he was chasing the mist. One could feel its cold tentacles penetrate into your bones. One could know that it's around you watching. However, you could not grab it, can not seize it.

The past three weeks were hell. Svetlana was just so accepting. He wanted her to loath him, to hate him for being the monster that he truly was. Yet no matter what, she worshipped him.

Ron betrayed everything that he once believed in.

He betrayed Kim's trust. He destroyed his family. He crossed the divide and there was no return. Death was kinder that self betrayal.

Svetlana was stash at a nearby safe house the Ron acquired off the books.

Svetlana would hopefully wait for him.

Ron would spend a week with the family, pretending to be everything that he was not. All the props were in place - Trinkets for the kids and wife, Viagra so that he could perform tonight as Kim expected.

Flashing his Global Justice credentials, Ron made his way to his cubicle hoping to avoid anyone who could recall him. Ron planned to file his final report, undergo his medical checkup, pee in the damn cup, and go to the home that he destroyed long ago.

Things did not work out as planned.

Kim was waiting with the resident shrink, Dr. Teller.

Ron suppressed a groan.

He had to return back to the field.

He had to find Svetlana a home.

He had to seek the assassin that would kill him and end the despair. At least if he was killed, his family would at least live secure in the lie that Ron Stoppable died a hero.

Ron remembered to grin at the sight of his wife.

"Hi KP. I'm back."

Kim was not happy. Maybe it was the baby.

"Don't hi KP me! Something is wrong and I am going to find out what?"

_Damn female intuition!_

It's hard to lie to someone that knew you since the age of five.

Ron prayed the Kim did not find out about Svetlana.

Kim continued, "You tried to sneak into Global Justice and avoid everyone. You have made it a point to avoid your mandatory psych evaluation for the past two years. You don't even call me to tell me when you are arriving. What's going on?"

Ron wanted to run, to escape. KP couldn't outrun him, even if she was not pregnant.

Years of being the distraction ensured that Ron could outrun almost anyone. However, she could lock down the building with a single phone call. There was no escape here. Ron simply had to go to plan B. Submit himself to the examination and hope that his crash course on psychological tests would kept him from being downgraded.

"I wanted to surprise you. I was going to pick up your birthday gift."

"My birthday is in three months, Ron."

"KP, you know about the assassination in Russia. I have to go back. No one else has the connections that I have in that god-forsaken hellhole. I can only spend a week back tops and I can't afford for anyone to link Vasilii Boiarskii to us, so I must do it now. I didn't want to ..."

Kim pulled out the big gun. She pulled out the pout.

"Okay KP. I will get my head shrunk and tell _Untersuchungsbeamter _Teller about my potty training, monkeys, the step parents, and my summers at Camp Wannawept."

Kim lost the pout. Her face contorted into something that signaled impending doom for Ron's plan.

"Ron, Beatrice is a doctor."

Her face was the color of her hair.

"She is not a member of the Inquisition. She doesn't get her rocks off putting her patients on the rack. She is not the enemy."

Ron was seeing something that he had not seen since KP was seven, a temper tantrum.

"Beatrice is just doing her job, trying to help you. If you don't cooperate, fully cooperate, I will personally go to Dr. Director, and have you pulled off the job. If need be, I will talk with my dad and send you on a first class trip to the nearest black hole."

Kim was now yelling as she started sobbing.

"I am not going to watch as you drive yourself to a mental breakdown. I remember when you woke up out of that coma in Germany. I am not going to explain to the kids why you are running around talking to imaginary friends about weather conditions on the far side of the moon. I am not a psychologist, but there is something wrong. I don't want it to destroy us."

Ron shuddered. He had already destroyed his family on the twins alters of duty and guilt.

"Don't mess with me. We will _talk _when she is done with you."

_We will talk_ was three words any husband did not want to hear from his significant other.

Ron was defeated.

Kim wouldn't accept a clean bill of mental health. He had no choice, but to follow the shrink to the clinic.

Ron _definitely _did not look forward to Kim's little talk.


	6. The Kim Ron Meltdown

WARNING: Rated M for extremely graphic sexual violence and language.

* * *

**World's Best Assassin**

**VI – The Kim-Ron Meltdown**

**By Pat Squared

* * *

**

Kim Stoppable was yelling at the top of her lungs, "Ronald Dean Stoppable, how dare you walk away before I get the last word?"

Ron snapped.

He picked up his pregnant wife and threw her over his shoulder. He marched into the bedroom and threw his wife into the bed.

"Shut up. I have put up with your holier than thou, Anything is Possible for a Possible, bitchy attitude for the past twenty-eight years."

Kim was stunned. Ron was always so ... Ron.

Kim saw something in his eyes. The soft chocolate brown eyes were gone replaced by the dark eyes of a monster that she instinctively feared.

Ron ripped off her clothes. He yanked arms above her head and with one hand grabbed both her wrists with the other one dropped his pants.

There was no foreplay, no gentleness as Ron shoved his organ into the occupied womb of his wife.

Ron proceeded to rape his wife.

"I have provided for you and the kids."

His eyes locked into hers.

"I have done everything, sacrificed every good thing I ever was. I killed, tortured, maimed, and did things the likes of which not even Drakken and Shego could contemplate to stop the real villains. Do you thing that some fancy smancy cheerleader moves can stop the real bad guys?"

He shoved his member into Kim's occupied womb bringing a wounded scream every time he thrust.

"You want to know why I don't talk about what I do at work? I am going to tell you right now!"

Ron smiled. The smile was that of pure madness.

"Hi honey, today, I killed family of six, including four kids, because the father in law was trying to sell some tactical nukes to some Jihadists."

He licked her jaw line.

"Hi honey, I set a man on fire and hacked off his genitals, because he was not telling me where his uncle was shipping weapons grade plutonium.

"Hi honey, I tortured a six year old kid in front of her parents because her daddy was supplying arms and 'technical assistance' to Charles Odimo, the African version of Hitler and Stalin's lovechild."

Ron punctuated his comments with another thrust. Kim was whimpering more in fear of the monster inside her husband than the actual experience of the rape.

"KP, I did my duty. I did what I had to do to get the job done. Four innocent lives versus thousands of lives – do the math Kim. Millions are alive because of me. How dare you get _Untersuchungsbeamter_ Teller to scrub me off mission status?"

Kim was crying as she heard the things that Ron kept buttoned up.

"Am I not effective? Don't I always get the job done? Am I not the one that Global Justice sends to snuff out the sparks before it becomes an inferno?

"I have done things that even my real great-grandfather, Schlosser _der Jagermeister_, would have shuddered to even contemplate. I have killed, mutilated, and destroyed the souls of innocents to save the world from others who were just like me. To uphold the truth, I must lie. To be Justice, I must break every law. I am the one in the shadows. You and your kind stand tall and proud. You and your kind can look in the mirror."

Ron's face was red with arousal, disgust, and self hatred.

"I want you to look at me. I want you to see what happens to those who have to fight injustice with injustice. I want you to see the man that I can not stand to see in the mirror every time I shave. I have given always everything good about me in return for serving the blind bitch with crooked scales. After all these years, I have finally figured out why she wears the blindfolds. So that she does not have to see the faces of all the bastards who fuck her on a daily basis."

Ron was beyond caring. The woman he loved betrayed him. She had Dr. Teller flunk Ron for psychological reasons.

Hell was going to freeze over before he meekly stood by and accepted shit.

There was a cure for bitchiness. Ron slapped his wife's face.

"Do you want more of the truth? Do you want more details about how it feels to cut into the flesh of a child because daddy did something bad? Do you want to know how many pills I pop to silence the screams inside my head, the sleepless nights, and the alcohol?"

Kim was helpless to react to the physical and emotional onslaught. Ron Stoppable, the innocent Pre-K boy and faithful sidekick, was now the monster that was raping her.

Ron released his seed, but he was not done.

He turned his wife over and shoved his still hard member into his wife's ass.

Kim let out a scream as Ron took her anal virginity.

The scream only fueled Ron's madness. He increased the pace.

"You think that I am crazy. Hell yes, I am effing nuts. I am your classical section 8, medical discharge for psychological reason textbook example of being bouncing off the effing walls of the psych ward nuts."

Ron let out a laugh that would scare Zorpox and all the other villains that Team Possible ever faced.

"Why am I mad?"

"I have been the little quiet boy too long. I watched as you flirted with Brick Flagg, Josh Mankey, and every other jock back in high school. I suffered for you and all I ever was is just your sidekick. I was nothing but the buffoon.

"The only reason you ever hooked up with me was because you were rebounding from Eric the synthdrone and needed a date, any date to keep up your place in the food chain. The great Kim Possible dumped at the Prom. Once that time past you dumped me and hooked back up with Monkey boy. The only reason you ever married me is because you got knocked up. Remember that night!"

Kim couldn't.

"You can't. You were smashed on $400 per bottle imported black currant vodka. You were so drunk that you jumped on the nearest cock, my cock. You raped me and then when you on cloud nine ... you called out his name. You called me Josh. You couldn't...you didn't want me! You wanted Monkey boy. I lost my virginity to someone who didn't want me.

"What did you tell me the following morning? That I was a mistake and you never wanted to see me again. You want to know what it feels like to be unwanted by the ones you love. I wanted to hate you. I wanted the pain to end. I loved you. I wanted nothing but your happiness."

Kim witnessed the hurt that Ron kept inside for so many years.

"When you found out you were pregnant, I stayed by your side and yet you ran away. I loved you. I gave up a promising career in the Marine Corps and joined Global Justice to protect you, to protect our unwanted child from growing up without a mother. Should I tell Melody Anne that you wanted to get an abortion? Should I tell her that you wanted to kill your own daughter, to kill her before she even had a _fucking _chance? Bitch, answer me."

Kimberly Anne P. Stoppable was in pain. She did not know what was worse. The rape was awful. However, Ron destroyed her with the truth she did not want to hear.

Ron release more seed into her anus. The physical punishment was over. The mental scars would never be over.

"I know that you will never forgive me for what I did. I know that when I leave, you will have Dr. Director paint a bulls eye on my head. However, I am going back to the field to hunt down the assassin. I know that you will never want me near you again. I know that you hate me, that to you I am a burden. Just take care of our children. Tell them that I died in the field to protect them. Tell them that I loved them. Tell them that it was my fault that our family is shattered. Kim, I still love you, no matter how much shit you dropped on me.

"However, I wan you to pass a message to our employer. Tell Global Justice that they are either with me or against me. God help them if they go against me for I won't hold back. When Schlosser's world collapsed he took his Mauser 98 Karabiner and went on a final hunt. Now it's my turn to go on my own final hunt. Look at me, Kim. You are staring at a dead man. I will go out and hunt down the scum of the earth until they finally get me. You had your revenge. I have just lost everything I love. I'm just waiting for my body to catch up with my soul."

Ron showered. Ron got dressed. Ron loaded his pistol and chambered a round. Ron grabbed his luggage. The he walked out of his house for the final time.

Kim's last sighting of her husband was through tear stained eyes.


	7. Crossing the Line

**World's Best Assassin**

**VI – Crossing the Line**

**By Pat Squared

* * *

**

WAAH-waah WAAH-waah WAAH-waah - The quite London night was violated by the sounds of London police sirens hooting off in the distance.

There was a fog coming in and the headstones of the ancient English cemetery were disappearing into the mists. The cold was seeping into his bones.

Ron Stoppable hated the waiting. It allowed his subconscious too much time to hammer whatever pride was left in his diminished psyche.

He lost everything. His family was destroyed. Global Justice was dispatching its field agents to locate, detain, and ship him home in a straight jacket. He had sunk lower than the scum he faced off against.

Svetlana was just a child, not must older than his own, yet he slept with her.

She was not corrupted. She was the type that religiously went to the church. She looked up to him as his daughter Melody once did. She believed that he loved her. Vasilii was her hero.

Ron Stoppable was nothing but a failure. Every act he did to defeat evil and villainy only corrupted him. He now intimately knew how Shego slid into villainy. Ron vowed to eat a bullet before he fell that far.

The paths to hell are paved with good intentions. His path to hell was a sixteen lane super highway.

This would be his last mission, he vowed. He could not return to Kim and the children and be the loving father and loyal husband. After their last fight, Kim had every right to hate him. He hated himself for what he did to his wife. He could not abandon Svetlana who depended on him. The only honorable way out for Ron Stoppable was death.

Ron hoped that his children would still believe that his life was given up for something meaningful. Maybe in death he could somehow redeem himself. Maybe the Orthodox rabbis will declare pigs kosher and start serving it at synagogue functions.

A whistle brought Vasilii out of Ron's self-loathing.

Vasilii stepped out behind the head stone.

The whistler was a young Oriental looking man wearing a tailor-made suit.

Vasilii could smell the sweat – a combination of fear and greed. This rat would sell him out if someone waved enough cash in front of its face. Loyalty for auction – It was the phenomena that Vasilii Boiarskii needed for his plans to move forward.

Despite passing through London, numerous times, Vasilii was disconcerted by the accent of the moon faced rat. Chinese bugger with an upper west-side accent with touches of Beijing and Hong Kong. However, Vasilii did not pay for the rat's words, but copies of international currency transfers. A handful of diamonds and a half a kilo of pure Columbian snow for half a dozen jump drives.

This guy was already flying pretty high, even without the half kilo of blow that Vasilii brought to the meeting.

Vasilii Boiarskii's examined the rat closely. The rat was armed with a poorly concealed pistol.

Boiarskii wanted to rip the rat's jaw off and beat it to death.

London was not America or Moscow where firearms were readily available.

It insanely strict firearm laws that made Washington DC seem like an NRA member's paradise. Carrying a gun was not a viable option for anyone wishing to escape notice from the authorities. This guy was lighting off bells and whistles in Vasilii's head. The bullshit detector just tripped.

This guy had to be watched. Eventhe dumbestcivilian in the worldcould spot that gun.

Vasilii had to walk away. He had to walk away from the scent of his quarry, his salvation, the one who would silence the screams inside his head.

Vasilii broke the rules. He could not more walk away than Ron could kill his wife and children.

Vasilii was not armed. He couldn't be in this city without attracting undue attention.

Vasilii approached the vermin. His hands were trembling with surging adrenaline. His face was white and his lips were tightly shut.

The rat was way too high to make the right decision. Vasilii was going to let the rat live if the rat cooperated. The rat pulled out his pistol and fired at the blond killer.

Idiot just had to shoot LA gangster style.

_Too effing bad! The manufacturer spends good money to put on sights for a good reason._

Vasilii ran to the nearest tombstone and dove into the mist. He crawl on his back to the next tombstone, making his way to the traitor.

Two summers at Yamanouchi taught Ron Stoppable the dirty tricks that would kill any sentry. The vermin had no chance.

Ron had the compunction against killing.

Howerver to Vasilii killing was as natural as washing his hands after going to the toilet. Vasilii used the ankle throw making sure that the vermin had his neck snapped when he landed head first. Vasilii then torque the head an additional 180 degrees to ensure that the vermin would be in no position to talk to authorities.

Searching the body, Vasilii found the jump drives. He had to go. The WAAH-waah WAAH-waah of the sirens were getting closer. Being chased for murder was bad enough. Being chased for the murder of an honest cop, Vasilii did not want to add that kind of heat to his resume.

Perversely the chorus to Orf's _Fortuna Imperatrix Mundi_ played in Vasilii's head.

_O Fortuna, __O Fortune_

_Velut luna __Variable_

_Statu variabilis,__As the moon_

_Simper crescis __Always dost thou_

_Aut decrescis; __Wax and wane;_

_Vita detestabilis __Detastable life_

_Nunc obdurate __First dost thou mistreat us,_

_Et tunc curat __And then, whimsically_

_Ludo mentis aciem, __Thou heedest our desires_

Tonight, Fate played her game with Vasilii, tonight's prey, and the coming hunters..

Two police cars arrive with armed constables.

Ron could not let Vasilii be caught. Global Justice would arrange for Ron Stoppable to get sprung from jail, but Kim would have him hauled off to some psych ward. Svetlana would be trapped in England traveling on a forged passport.

Consequences be damned. Vasilii Boiarski would die before being caught. Svetlana would be sent back to Russia over his dead body.

The rat had an old Enfield police revolver. Opening the cylinder, Vasilii noted that the ammunition was old. Vasilii had only five shots if he was lucky and all the ammunition worked.

Silently cursing his luck, Vasilii's only resource was the mist and the fact that they did not know that Vasilii was still hidding in the churchyard.

Two of the constables were armed with submachine guns. Those two were providing over watch protection as the two younger constables started walking a search pattern, their flashlights cutting through the mist.

Vasilii rolled away from the body just in time. The constables spotted it and all their attentions were naturally fixated on the corpse. He just needed to slip away.

However, one of the constables was actually alert at three in the morning. Just as Vasilii approached the wrought iron fence, he heard a challenge.

Like hunting dogs, the four constables were on Vasilii's trail.

Ron remembered what his tactical instructors at Global Justice taught him about gunfight survival.

_Attack the biggest threat first._

Vasilii aimed the old Enfield revolver at the nearest submachine gun armed constable. Twice, he squeezed the trigger and the constable fell death.

The other constables dropped behind the nearest tombstones. Vasilii sprinted and dove into the shadow of the church wall.

Ron could hear one of the constables radioing for more armed officers.

_Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit_.

Vasilii rolled in the mist, crab walked behind the constable radioing for help. He aimed the revolver at the base of the constable's skull and pulled the trigger. Vasilii grabbed the fallen officer's pistol and spare magazine.

Gunfire erupted around Vasilii as he rolled.

Vasilii pulled back the slide. The chamber was empty. Releasing the slide, Vasilii chambered a round.

Vasilii heard the frantic replies on the radio. It was chaos on the frequency as senior officers tried to figure out which constibleswere and were not armed.

_Thank God this did not happen in America._ Beat cops in America had more experience with armed suspectsthan their British counterparts. In America, Vasilii's oods of survival would be damn close to zero.

The chaos would hopefully buy Vasilii enough time to make his escape.

Vasilii crouched his way towards the police cars. As he worked his way through the headstone, Vasilii spotted second submachine armed constable. Vasilii brought up the pistol to eye level, placed the front sight on the face of the target and squeezed the trigger twice putting two rounds into the head of the constable.

Vasilii was knocked to the ground as something kidded him in the side. Vasilii rolled. The last constable was hyperventilating, his focus was on the location he last spotted the shooter. It was a mistake that rookies and indeed many professionals make. The constable was obviously a rookie when it can to being on the business end of a pistol.

Vasilii brought up the pistol, placed the sight on the target's face and put two more bullets in the face of the constable.

Quickly Vasilii yanked the bullet resistant vest and pistol belt off the constable. He grabbed the submachine gun and four magazines. Vasilii recalled the call sign that the constable used.

Vasilii called in a report as if he was shot. He told dispatch that the suspects were four armed Asian males, one of which had Triad tattoos. The suspects were heavily armed and had on bullet resistant vests. Vasilii then gave a false direction. The he fired a couple more shots before leaving the radio with the fallen officer.

Vasilii knew that he crossed the line. Global Justice would be out to hunt the rogue agent down. Ron had no choice. Duty and a twist of fate compelled him to the life of a fugitive.

Vasilii quickly left the area, moving in the shadows towards the river.


	8. Rogue Status

**World's Best Assassin**

**VI – Rogue Status**

**By Pat Squared**

* * *

Dr. Betty Director was mortally tired.

On her desk was a five inch thick report written by her executive assistant William Stu. It covered everything and illuminated nothing.

Everything was going down the drain. For decades she dreamt of forming the world best crime-fighting organization. Global Justice performed where Interpol and the local law fail.

Now she was threaten with the loss of her two best agents.

Kimberly Ann P. Stoppable was the best director of operations and training that anyone could ever ask for. The quality of Global Justice agents' sky rocketed once she was in charge and the number of botched operations dramatically fell. Even eight months pregnant, Kim would work tirelessly to ensure that Global Justice agents returned back to their families unharmed.

Ron – Ron was unique. Ron seemed to know were the action was. It was instinctive, some inborn talent that years of experience only sharpened. He would often nip the problem in the bud before a GJ Special Tasks Team who be needed. No criminal mastermind could sneak up on Global Justice. Ron owned the shadows.

Ron was Global Justice's roving eye and fixer. He was out in the field, semi-independent from everyone else, a sentinel, protecting the world and the ranks of Global Justice agents.

Dr. Director wanted to disbelieve the report on her desk. She wanted to believe that Ron staged to so that he could claw his way deeper into the criminal underbelly. However, she could not deny what happen.

Ronald Dean Possible went rogue.

Firstm Ronald Dean Possible destroyed Kim's psyche. Ronald Dean Possible assassinated the son of the Chinese Ambassador to London. Then Ronald Dean Possible killed four London constables when they arrive in on a _shots fired call_..

Dr. Teller spent weeks debriefing Kim Possible. The tales of the monster seem so unreal. Ron was synominous with the term gentle. He was a dedicated family man. He was the type of man you wanted to cover your back.

Beneath the dog like loyalty was a volcano of hurt and the volcano erupted. Dr. Director personally managed this investigation herself. The stakes were way too high.

After a lengthy debriefing, Ron's Moscow handler confessed that the myths of Vasilii Alexovich Boiarskii's brutal history were true. That he would resort to brutality -Friends, family, associates of anyone who cross Boiarskii was marked for death. Even the family pet would die.

Worse were all the operations that Ron did off the books.

Eastern and Central Europe was quiet. Quiet because Ron acted as judge, jury, and executioner. Ron did things that would make any Gestapo interrogator queasy. To him the ends justified any means.

The Ron Stoppable that she knew was gone, replaced by something as evil as any criminal that Global Justice ever faced.

Worse,Dr. Directorwould have to break the news to Kim. She would have to shatter the faith Kim had in her ability to save Ron. She would have to declare Ron Stoppable a rogue. She would have to hunt down and maybe kill someone she once considered a close friend.

"Stu, this file is classified Director's Eyes Only. Not even Kim is allowed to see this."

"But...but."

"Stu, I will talk to Kim.

"I will deal personally with the Ron situation. Prepare an order for all Global Justice agents to drop what they are doing and apprehend Vasilii Alexovich Boiarskii. Bring him in - Preferably alive, but if necessary in a body bag. Ron has cross the line and I want him in our hands before he can do anymore harm."

Stu looked at his mentor. She seemed tired.

"I thought we were talking about Ron Stoppable."

Betty Director shook her head.

"Tell no one that Vasilii is Ron!"

"Why?"

Betty suppressed the urge to smack some sense into Stu's thick skull.

"Ron has become one of the bad guys, Stu. I don't want anyone to know that Ron, that my best agent broke faith. If we tell the agnets tonight, it all will be in the tabloids tomorrow."

"Then what charges?"

"Vasilii will be wanted for the murders in London, the numerous human rights violations he committed, and the violation of trade and arms embargos. The Chinese already put a five million Euro bounty on his head; we have to find Ron before one of their pawns do."

Dr. Betty Director walked to Kim's office. She was in a meeting with her department subheads.

"Kim, I need to talk to you now, alone."

Kim instinctively knew that it was about Ron. The department subhead grabbed their files and ran out of the office.

Dr. Betty Director ensured that the office was locked. She put the DVD into the machine and turned on the flat screen TV. Vladimir's confession was playing.

"Sit down and listen."

Stunned, Kim obeyed.

"It's Ron...He has gone rogue."

Fifteen minutes later, Kim Stoppable had to be taken to the hospital. She fell and her water broke a month early.

Dr. Director cursed fate. She muttered a brief prayer for Kim and the baby, before ordering Global Justice to send a team to collect the Stoppable children and her parents. Kim would need family at this time.

Dr. Director had no choice. She personally signed the execution order on Ron Stoppable.


	9. Memories

**World's Best Assassin**

**VII – Memories**

**By Pat Squared

* * *

**

Ron Stoppable watched helplessly as the BBC released an exposé on Vasilii Boiarskii the brutal merchant of death.

Critically speaking, it was not as good or as graphic as the Fox News Special with Geraldo Rivera.

The images of Boiarskii's handiwork were bad enough, but Ron Stoppable had to deal with the memories the crime scene photographs summoned.

Global Justice pulled out all the stops to locate and detain their missing agent.

Vladimir Rasputin, Vasilii's former confidant and Ron's contact with Global Justice, was put on trial where he agreed to testify against his employer in return for immunity. Boiarskii's known assets were seized. His picture was in every immigration and customs office including the one in Bumfuq, Egypt.

Worse, there was twenty five million dollars worth of bounties on his head. Global Justice and the Chinese were in an all out bidding war for the head of Vasilii Boiarskii.

Only Osama bin Laden ranked higher on the FBI's Ten Most Wanted list.

The Russians wanted him on general principles.

The Chinese were howling for his head.

The trail of the assassin was growing cold and Ron couldn't help it.

In one night, Ron Stoppable lost everything he ever fought for.

KP was correct, he was not the Ron Stoppable she married a dozen years ago.

Ron replayed the whole incident. The shrinks at Global Justice were right – Ron Stoppable should have been pulled from the field a long time ago. He remembered Kim crying as he ravaged her that night. His kids were afraid of him. His wife hated him.

Ron had to make things right.

There was a bad guy out there and if he didn't get him, some other Global Justice agent would have to match wits with the killer. However, there was no agent who could do the things that Vasilii Boiarskii would have to do to track down the killer.

For someone of this caliber, Global Justice would have call upon its two legendary agents. With Ron scrubbed off the roster because of negative psych evaluations, and Kim out on maternity leave.His place outin the field would by filled bysome rookie who still saw the world with stars in his eyes.

Ron left a note. He ambushed a lawyer in the middle of the night to update his will and set up a non-revocable trust fund with some of the naco royalty money he stashed away. Svetlana would receive enough to stay off the streets and get an education when Ron died.

Worse, Ron met up with his lover. Svetlana was in tears when she saw Vasilii. She knew that something was wrong, yet she tried so hard not to be a burden. Svetlana cried in her sleep begging Vasilii to forgive her for making him feel so bad.

Ron just lay on the hotel bed, holding Svetlana wondering how he managed screw up every good thing he had in this life.

Three days of constant traveling took its toll on Ron. Svetlana was tired, exhausted by the emotional tension. Ron was left to drive. He had too much time to think.

Kim should have married someone else. The kids should have a dad that would be there for their soccer games and piano recitals. Svetlana should have gone to school and found a boyfriend her age instead of being Ron Stoppable's semen receptacle.

Ron wanted to eat a bullet. However, Vasilii Boiarskii last childhood memory was of a KGB counterintelligence officer forcing his mother to eat a bullet.

It was Vasilii's fault.

Vasilii was three whenthe local KGB snitch overheard Vasilii ask his mother questions about his father. She was shot and killed because she couldn't reveal the whereabouts of the CIA case officer that fathered her child, Vasilii.

How could Ron explain his life to the shrink?

Ron Stoppable was a construct. The Ron Stoppable everyone knew was a construct forced upon a four year old boy whose only contact with American was the stories that his mother told him about his father and how his father was trying to arrange for him to go to America. It was all a lie.

The story was all lies concocted to help a confused child with a baby of her own to feel special. His American father's family did not want Vasilii in their family tree.

Being the bastard child in a Volksdeutsche family in Estonia taught Vasilii that being unwanted was the Boiarskii family curse. Since _SS Strumbanfurher _Erik Schlosser,_ der Jagermeister_,of_ Einsatzgruppen A_ knocked up Fraulein Freda Weinhold, a fourteen year old example of Aryan womanhood back in 1942, the family was cursed to be on everyone's shit list.

The Estonians disliked the ethnic German community as much as they disliked the ethnic Russians. The Russian hated the ethnic Germans, especially those who fraternized with the SS. When the Russians seized Estonia, they made it a habit to conduct their version of ethnic cleansing.

The only reason Vasilii great-grandmother survived the purge was that she would spread her legs. Freda Weinhold was redubbed Freda Boiarskii or Freda 'son of the boyar or lord' as an insult referring to the SS believe that they were the masters of the human race. The mistress of an 'SS overlord' found herself working the alleyways of Saaremaa to keep her and her numerous offspring alive.

Vasilii grandmother, Eva, was the child of the SS overlord. She supported the Forest Brothers, a bank of former Estonian SS men who fought against the Russian occupation of Estonia. She was taken by the KGB and die of starvation in the gulag.

His mother did not fare much better. She rebelled and worked as a honey pot providing information to the Americans. However, the bastard American CIA case officer Alexander Fisher ensured that her honey pot was already occupied before she started her 'intelligence' operations.

He was placed with the Stoppable family because they lost their only child Ron in a swimming pool accident. Mrs. Stoppable couldn't have anymore children and the Stoppable marriage was failing. He was their substitute and he failed badly.

Ron remembered the beatings that Mr. Stoppable inflicted on both Mrs. Stoppable and the child substitute. He remembered the constant lectures from the self suffering Mrs. Stoppable whenever she got drunk.

_You will never be as good as the real my real son Ron. I hate you._

All he wanted was to be Vasilii Alexovich Boiarskii. To have a mother that loved him for being her child, instead of being a stop gap to save a failing marriage.

However, the people that smuggled him out of the Soviet Union told him that he had to be Ron Stoppable. They smacked him whenever he spoke in German or Russian and forced him to speak English like all the other kids. They told him that he had to be the replacement child.

He learned to bottle up the resentment, the anger, the self-hatred. He tried so hard to be the good boy everyone wanted him to be.

He remembered his first murder. Vasilii was not content to let the bastard die. He sent the ess oh bee off to hell with a special send off. By giving into his pent up rage, Vasilii created a legend, a level of brutality with which he had to compete. If he didn't the bad guy will think the Vasilii Boiarskii was getting soft.

Vasilii curse the legend. How could a man compete against a tale that grew with every telling? Vasilii did and paid for it with his soul.

Vasilii lived a lie. His wife loved a lie. His kids had a lie for a father. His life was molded by lies and deception. What a fitting childhood for a spy.

Svetlana hugged him, instinctively knowing how to get Vasilii out of his dark moods.

It was fifty seven clicks to the German-Austrian border. With the rise of the EU, the old border checkpoints were gone. However, the local authorities kept camera to record cross border traffic.

Vasilii and Svetlana would have to take a mountain hike.

Nearby was a town catering to sports minded tourists. Vasilii only hoped that there were enough tourists for Svetlana and him to blend into the crowds.

Vasilii checked his pockets. His entire fortune now consisted of six hundred fifty three Euros. He had money stashed in escrow accounts, but to access them would require that he travel to the bank. Global Justice would be waiting for him to break cover.


	10. Hunter's from the East

**World's Best Assassin**

**X – Hunters from the East**

**By Pat Squared

* * *

**

Lieutenant Lu Ah Chow of theChinese People's Liberation Armydouble checked his Type 95 assault rifle for any imperfections that would compromise his mission.

Intelligence had the name and description of the assassin who took the life of the son to the Chinese ambassador to the United Kingdom.

Vasilii Boiarskii had a legendary reputation both as a highly-skilled psychopathic killer and as the ultimate merchant of death. Chinese intelligence had a grainy photo of the man cutting a deal with a Vietnamese general in Hanoi

It was shot through a telephoto lens and the focus was off.

He looked like every Caucasian that Lu Ah Chow ever encountered.

Unlike his mainland cousins, Lu Ah Chow could differential between Caucasians due to his upbringing in Hong Kong. He grew up with the children of British civil servants who oversaw the transfer of Hong Kong to China and even today, he could recall every white face he ever saw. However, this one would be difficult to spot in a crowd.

Lu Ah Chow and his team were accredited to the Chinese Mission to Austria as diplomatic security officers, read bodyguards for the diplomatic staff. As such they had diplomatic immunity. Hopefully, they wouldn't have to expend their cover tonight.

Lu Ah Chow waited for the informant to confirm the location of his quarry.

The informant lit his cigarette in the prescribe manner, waited two minutes puffing vigorously, and thenash out his cigarette on the subject's door. The information walked off satisfied knowing that tomorrow, he would beone hundred thousandEuros richer.

Lu Ah Chow and his five man assault team moved towards the door without making a sound. Sergeant Yi was in his perch providing oversight with his suppressed rifle.

Everyone was in his proper place.

Lu pumped his fist in the air. Private Khan kicked in the door and Lu tossed in the distraction device. The team ran inside the room.

Suddenly there was the sound of gunfire. Lu was knocked forward. There was screaming as his men fell to the shots.

Lu was kicked in the ribs. From the pain, he knew that at least two of his ribs were broken. More shots were fired and the groans of his men were silenced.

Lu knew his fate. He would be killed. His wife and kid would be given his medals, a brief memorial service, and a small pension.

Lu was picked up by the front of his assault vest.

The speaker's Mandarin was impeccable.

"Who sent you?"

Lu looked at the eyes of the monster that killed his men.

The monster pulled out a knife.

"You have two choices my friend. Die a man or piss like a woman. Your choice."

The monster cut off Lu's pants with a single swipe of his knife. Lu remembered everything that intelligence told him about Boiarskii's interrogation tactics.

Lu didn't want to live half a man.

"Beijing wants you for the death of Wen Ho Li, the son of the its ambassador to England. Wen Ting, the father, put five million of his own money for anyone who killed you."

"My friend, you will live. You will be marked and I will hurt you so that you superiors will believe that you loyally did your duty. However you will give Beijing a message. A father should not put a bounty on the hand that killed a traitorous son. Ho Li was on my payroll for years. He was corrupted by drugs and loved little boys. Repeat the message."

Lu repeated the message. Then darkness took Lu.

Lu woke up in the hospital under guard. Colonel Tsing motioned for Lu not to say a word. In the room were two Austrian police officers.

Colonel Tsing and the Austrians were yelling at each other in a language that Lu could not understand.

The Austrians walked out upset.

Tsing looked at his errant subordinate. Lu wondered what will happen to him, to his family. The pain in his legs told him that he wouldn't be sent out to the correction farms. He knew that he would not walk again.


	11. Melody's World

**World's Best Assassin**

**XI – Melody's World**

**By Pat Square

* * *

**

Melody Anne Stoppable hated her world. She watched her mother cry as Grandma Possible tried to comfort her mother.

Her family was being torn apart by something and no one told Melody why it happened.

Melody did not want to believe what she overheard her mother confessed to her grandmother. It was hard for a twelve year old to find out that she was a mistake and that her mother was going to kill her before she was even born. The only reason that she was even alive was that her father prevented her mother from having an abortion.

Melody Anne wanted her father home. He was her protector. He was the one who taught her to face down her fears and the bullies of life. He always knew how to lift anyone from the dark moods. She wanted to be in his arms and tell him about all the things that he missed.

Her daddy was her hero. Melody had mommy's super high IQ, but otherwise she truly considered herself one hundred percent her daddy's little girl down to the soft chocolate brown eyes and freckles.

The one-eyed stinky hag sent watchers.Melody overheard them talking about how Global Justice were going to hunt down and kill her daddy.

No one hunts down daddy if Melody Anne had something to say about it.

Melody saw the television programs – the ones that called her daddy Vasilii Boiarskii, the psychopathic merchant of death. Can't they see that daddy had to do these things to save the world? Daddy is not some James Bond who kills and then gives some witty pick up line. Melody knew about daddy's nightmares a long time ago.

Melody was old enough to see beyond the labels of black and white. She knew that the world could not be saved without people like her daddy who crawled in the mud pit and slugged it out with evil. She knew that daddy suffered every night. He gave up everything to save the world and the world spat back in his face.

The gated community of Pine Crest Park, Colorado was a fiefdom of Global Justice.

Everyone either worked for Global Justice or was retired from Global Justice. The few outsiders who brought in the necessary town services and established the local stores were carefully screened and drawn from the ranks of former military or law enforcement types who knew the importance of keeping one's mouth shut.

However in the small town, secrets have a way of getting out.

Suddenly, the other kids would have nothing to do with Melody and her siblings.

The word in the playground was that Melody Anne's father is a traitor and that Global Justice will kill him. The kids felt it was their duty to turn their hated and discontent upon the Stoppable kids.

For defending herself and her siblings, the school put her on disciplinary suspension for the rest of the year, because she broke Bobby Hackett's jaw with her drum sticks. Now her brothers and sisters were returning home with black eyes, cuts, and bruises. The sixth graders were beating up her family and there was nothing that Melody could do to prevent it.

With mommy sick, Melody had to tend to all the injuries the bullies inflicited on her siblings.

Melody once wanted to grow up and join Global Justice as her parents did.

Now she wanted to grow up and join her daddy and kill everyone that spat on her father's name.

In her diary, Melody started keeping a list of names of those who insulted her daddy. Every reporter and commentator, every Global Justice agent, every snickering kid who beat up one of her brothers or sisters – She vowed to kill them all, slowly.

Melody Anne went to the piano in the den. She remembered her father teaching the basics and the special song that he played for his little Melody Anne. She started playing their special song. She didn't care what anyone else thought. Her daddy would always be her hero.


	12. Dog's of War

**World's Best Assassin**

**XI – Dogs of War**

**By Pat Squared

* * *

**

Timothy Locklear, formerly of the Special Boat Service, examined the three other _guests_ at the table.

Someone paid a great sum of hard currency to lure four of the world's best contract professionals to meet in small Lancaster pub.

Miguel Dubois was a French Canadian who worked as a bounty hunter specializing in retrieving fugitives from anywhere in the world.

John Sterling was a retired FBI agent who looked like an ordinary bloke. However this ordinary broke spent three decades in counterintelligence, counterterrorism, narcotics, and organized crime tracking down the worst of the worst. He had snitches from the Washington beltway to the remotest poppy field in Afghanistan.

The last guest was an oriental woman in her thirties. Unlike the other two with know reputatiosn, no one knew her. She just walked into the meeting room, took a seat, ordered a Spite in a _plastic_ cup, and merely waited for the host to arrive.

No one made small talk. They just sat there nursing their drinks.

The curtain parted and two figures walked into the closet sized room.

The one in charge was a female in her fifties. Wearing an eyepatch, Timothy figured that she was the boss and probably tougher that the Queen.

And as straight forward too.

"Unless you have resided on the far side of the moon, you all have heard of Vasilii Boiarskii.

"According to Fox News, he specializes in marketing death, wholesale or retail. According to BBC, he killed the son to the Chinese ambassador and then single handedly killed four armed London constables, including one who was a twenty year veteran with the SAS, who responded to the shots fired call.

"What is not on the news? Last week in Austria, he killed a Chinese Special Operations Assault Element, leaving one alive to carry a message back to Beijing. According to my sources, he threw down the gauntlet and told the Chinese that heads would roll if they don't back off."

The old bird with the eye patch examined each of the four guns for hire.

"I am hiring a team that can deliver Vasilii Boiarskii back to Global Justice headquarters. I will pack each of you a retainer of five hundred thousand Euros, plus a five million tax-free Euros if you bring his corpse back or seven million tax-free Euros if you bring him in alive and in condition to speak. If you bring him back in the next thirty days you all will split an additional twenty million tax-free dollars.

"I will also supply you with communications, electronics, weapons, transports, housing, and documents. You will be on the books as deputized Global Justice Supervisory Agents. You will be able to requisition Global Justice resources.

"However, this is the time of truth. Are you in or are out?"

Three of the mercenaries rushed to cash in on the offer. Timothy noted that the lady held back.

She cleared her throat.

I won't take you up on your offer yet, Dr. Director. These three are good. With the exception of Boiarskii, there is no one on earth that can hide from the collective efforts of these three gentlemen. You have my number. Call me when these three are sporting toe tags and chilling in the local morgue."

The Asian lady finished her Sprite, stood up and walked out of the room taking the plastic cup with her. Sheleft Timothy and the other two to negotiate the offer with their new employer.


	13. Svetlana's Training

**World's Best Assassin**

**XIII – Svetlana's Training**

**By Pat Square

* * *

**

Svetlana wondered how anyone could be expected to recall so much from a single glance.

Vasilii would prepare a basket of miscellaneous items and she would have to call off every item in the basket from her memory. He called it the _Stone Game _and told her that it was a game that everyone in the _Great Game_ had to master.

Svetlana hated it. No matter how hard she tried, she was always messing something up.

Vasilii was quite forgiving of her cursing, but Svetlana was afraid that he would think of her as stupid, unteachable, and send her back to Russia alone and unloved.

Svetlana vowed to kill herself before returning to the streets of Moscow.

She glanced at the stones, cataloging each color, each position, everything that he could ask her.

_Two round cats-eyes;_

_Five square onyx;_

_Three green marbles;_

_One rose colored quartz the length and shape of a finger;_

_Six oblong reds with rust brown speckles;_

_Eight Red Coat British Grenadiers with bearskin hats ready to march off to war;_

_Two smooth grey river rocks with black spots;_

_A golden locket on a golden wire necklace._

Svetlana replayed the image in her mind as Vasilii described the arrangement of the stones.

His soft eyes locked into hers.

"Svetlana, tell me about the stones."

One by one, she recalled the stones. She described the locket and the golden wire necklace.

"Svetlana, I'm sorry, but there were five red stones, not six."

Svetlana wanted to die.

She was sure there were six red stones. She counted them twice. She might not have been educated, but she could count.

"Vasilii, I counted six red stones."

Vasilii examined her as a schoolmaster examined an erring pupil in need of physical discipline. Svetlana tried to suppress the trembling in her petite frame.

Svetlana held back a sob. She counted six red stones.

"There were six stones."

Vasilii reached into the basket and pulled out the necklace. He fastened it around her neck.

"Svetlana, I'm sorry. You were right. There were six red stones. However, I mislead you."

"Most people are reluctant to disagree with those who hold some power over them. If you are not careful, people will tell you to disbelieve what you see, what you touch, what you should feel, think, or perceive. Svetlana, you won this round of stones and earned this locket."

Svetlana's face lit up. She did it. She earned her place by his side.

"Whenever you look on this, I want you to remember that no one has the right to tell you that what you see, what you do, say, or sense is wrong. No one can tell you want you feel is wrong."

Vasilii kissed her on the lips. It was not sexual, but she never felted more loved in her life.

"You have been through more in a few weeks than most people lived through in a lifetime. You have undergone more profound lesions that any person should have to suffer. Unfortunately, fate will punish us even more. Force us to undergo more lesions that you should not have to suffer."

He hugged her.

She didn't see the sorrow in his eyes.


	14. The Envelope

**World's Best Assassin**

**XIV – The Envelope**

**By Pat Squared

* * *

**

_Just because you are paranoid does not mean that the little green men with machetes are not out to castrate you!_

Ron recalled the lessons that his former instructors at Global Justice taught him a dozen years ago. Paranoia was his best friend. It kept his heart beating, his lungs breathing, and spurred him unto his eventual self-destruction.

Ron wondered what the forensic shrinks and historians would write about Vasilii Alexovich Boiarskii in a couple years. He remembered all the off the wall psych theories about Hitler and his laundry bag of psychological problems that were banded about on the educational channels.

Hitler's list of probable problems included genital deformities, sexually transmitted diseases eating out his nervous system, drug addiction, possible child abuse, possible incest at home, rejection, megalomania, the conjunction of the stars and planets at his birth, pent up rage, advanced cynicism, and general 'I Hate the World' disorder.

_Combine one natural born sucker, a forgettable persona, an acute case of social leprosy, years of rejections, half a dozen psychological neurosis and phobia, and a touch of masochism. Shake. Stir. Light with a fuse attached to a tactical nuke, and garnish with two bottles of little green pills. Serve with bullshit and crackers. As an option, toss in some weaponized anthrax and VX gas for extra bite._

Ron, the man who invented the Naco, wondered if anyone would ever again stumble unto his recipe for self-destruction.

He noted that his mind was no longer _there_. His powers of recall and logic were diminishing as the pressures built up inside his skull. Sometimes he even had difficulty recalling the faces and names of his kids. He had long since forgot their birthdays and ages.

_For being such a supposedly dedicated father, you can not remember any shit that matters!_

Ron was so out of his mind that he had to literally trip over the crib to spot the sign.

There was a red ideogram chalked up on the base of the curb. It was the mark of the Monkey King. Only two people at Yamanouchi, knew the mark and its significance. However, Montgomery Fiske also knew about the mark also.

Vasilii Boiarskii did not want to take a chance, but Ron Stoppable was desperate for any information.

He walked up to the step, retied his shoes, and surreptitiously retrieved the dead drop spike.

The message was simple.

_12:30 p.m. The patio gardens of the Hilton. Reservations for two under the name of Maxwell Bauer_.

Ron breathed a sigh of relief. Yori used the proper code phase.

Four hours later, Ron sat nervously waiting for his mystery host.

A man walked up and sat down in the seat. Ron examined the guy's face, his mind trying to play match cards. He never saw the man before in his life.

"Herr Bauer, I am Fredrich Herzberg, Vice President of Operationas at _SIG AG SegaIntersettle_."

The man shook hands in the proper European fashion. One limp upand down pump.

"You have come a long way. One does often not find Swiss bankers vacationing in the Czech Republic."

The man blushed.

"Ms. Yohisko of Nakasumi Industries in Japan contacted me and told me that you were in town on vacation. She had some problems trying to wire funds to the account they have set up for you.

"There was a number mix up involved and the Japanese banks with the translation issues. Translating instructions German to English to Japanese and back, not to mention two different alphabets. There is a lot of room for misunderstandings. Fax of a fax and sometime international telecommunications are not as smooth as the satellite operators would have us believe.

"Ms. Yohisko was greatly upset as you were about the whole incident."

The man handed over a package.

"To expedite matters, I have been personally instructed by Ms. Yohisko to establish an escrow account. In the package are your account number, credit cards, and access passwords. The funds have already been transferred and I will personally handle any transactions involving your account. I am sorry that this _incident_ occurred."

Vasilii merely smiled, careful not to speak his German in the Estonian _Baltendeutsche_ accent of his early childhood instead of the Hessian accent that the foreign language instructor pounded into his thick skull. It was like a Texan trying to sound like a native New Yorker.

"_Ja_. It was probably my sloppy hand writing. By the time you initial three copies of a fifty six page contract ..."

Herzberg was quick on the uptake.

"I understand. Sometimes, I can't reach my own handwriting. Here is my card should you need any funds wired. Thank you for your patience. I would stay and chat but I have to return to Osten immediately - The call of duty, you know. However, this meal is on me, as the Americans say. Thank you Herr Bauer."

Ron resisted the urge to rip into the thick tape bound manila envelope.

Vasilii Boiarskii enjoyed the pouched salmon accompanied by a fine _Ryzlink Rynsky_ white wine. Herr Bauer was known for his epicurean attitude toward fine cuisine.

Herr Bauer took a leisurely walk through the castle quarter of Prague while Ron Stoppable fretted over the contents of the envelope.

At the hotel, Ron carefully examined the package. He went into the closet, turned out the light, and poked a hole in the corner of the package. He sniffed for the familiar scent of Semtex.

No scent.

_Please don't let it be a lot from the Cold War._

Those did not have the additional scent tag that the newer lots have. Although the RDX rich explosive would then be past its programed self live, military grade explosivescould be every bitas deadly one hundred years later as a lot fresh from the factory.

Ron cringed as he opened the package.

His world did not come to a fiery end.

Ron felt the contents of the envelope. There was nothing that felt like a photosensor trigger for an explosive device.

Ron opened the door and started reading the paperwork. However set up this stash knew what he was doing.Eight blank United Nations passports allowing the bearers diplomatic status, identity cards, associated wallet lint – the crap everyone keeps in their wallet such as old business cards, theater ticket stubs.

However Ron did not focus on the legend, but the surveillance photos that were delivered with the report. Three more adversaries that Global Justice hire to hunt him down.

_Focus Ron_.

The thought came with such intensity that he yelped and turned around. It sounded exactly like Kim. However, Kim was not there. He lost her love and his kids a long time ago.

Ron Stoppable had two missions. Find and deal with the assassin and find Svetlana a home. Once he was done with those two tasks, he would willingly let anyone blow his brains out.


	15. Renewal of the Hunt

World's Best Assassin

XV – Renewal of the Hunt

By Pat Squared

Former Regimental Sergeant Major Timothy Locklear of Her Majesty's Special Boat Service watched the public video surveillance cameras.

Former FBI Special Agent John Sterling forked out over two hundred thousand Euros of money and drugs to assorted snitches to run down the target.

Dubois was handling retraining the squad of Global Justice agents he commandeered for the actual 'Cosh and carry' on dynamic entries.

The trio had ten days left before the thirty day bonus would expire.

_What did the bitch know about Boiarskii?_

Vasilii Boiarskii was the bogeyman of Eastern Europe.

One of Sterling's contacts in the Russian Foreign Security Bureau delivered all the known records on Boiarskii.

The second directorate of the old KGB had extensive files on Boiarskii's family. _SS_ blood ran in Boiarskii's veins. They were _Volksdeutsche_ from _Kuressaare_, formerly known as _Arensberg_, the only real city in the _Saamaraa_ region of Estonia. They had an extensive track record of subversive activity against the Soviet Union. The last known record was in late 1988, when the mother was killed resisting arrest and her son, Vasilii, age three, was placed the state orphanage. The reporting authority simply stated that he was transferred to a special corrective facility for children of political dissidents near Moscow.

That facility was known as the 'Doll Case.' Only a handful of the children sent their made it out alive. Vasilii's name was not recorded in the death rolls or among the names of the know survivors.

There was nothing until a dozen years ago. No records of military service or run-ins with law enforcement. Russian Militia, the Russian police force, started hearing whispers about a new player in the arms and drugs rackets. This player was not ex-KGB like the other _vors_, or godfathers in the Russian mob. In five years, Boiarskii rose from the ranks of the small time to being the first among 'equals' of Russian crime bosses.

Information was sketchy. No one talked and those that did ended up dead. If the militia got in the way, Boiarskii was fond of using the quote, '_Lassen Sie uns haben eine kleine Rede._' Let us have a little talk.

Unfortunately for the addresses, the little talk would end with the addressee personally being used as a punching for Boiarskii's workout unless that person agreed to be on Boiarskii's payroll.

Before the big expose, Vasilii Boiarskii was the eight hundred pound gorilla in Eastern Europe's criminal underground. They didn't like him. Russian had long memories and hated ethnic Germans, but they respected his ability to deliver what he promised. While he did not control the other families, they were careful not to interfere in his business affairs.

Locklear examined the Interpol surveillance photographs of Vasilii Boiarskii with various 'clients' drawn from the latest issue of _Dictator's Weekly_.

_Hell, this sodding arse probably did business with the old battle axe, herself. I know he did business with the American, British, and Italian intelligence services._

Blond hair, dark eyes, he looked more like a postal clerk than a criminal mastermind. He looked more like Adolph Eichmann, the architect of Hitler's _Final Solution_, rather than _SS_ _Sturmbannfurher_ Otto Skorzeny, Hitler's favorite commando.

However, Boiarskii did have the skill of a commando. A known weapons and unarmed combat expert, Vasilii Boiarskii personally did his own 'wetwork', knew his way around extreme sports, and could blend in anywhere in North America, the Southern Cone of South America, and Europe. He did not run with an army of bodyguards like the other godfathers. His ability with guns, knives, and track record of wiping the floor with assorted hitmen gave Boiarskii the aura of invincibility.

Fluent in Arabic, Cantonese, Czech, Dutch, English, Estonian, French, German, Greek, Hebrew, Hungarian, Italian, Japanese, Mandarin Chinese, and Russian, Vasilii also had a smattering of dead languages like Ancient Egyptian, Aramaic, and Latin.

He was known to use American, Argentinean, Canadian, Estonian, German, Russian, and Swiss cover legends. They were universally all professional or professor types, generally in banking, corporate law, economics, foreign languages, or ancient history - all were fields guaranteed to bore whoever was interested the legend's line of work. Rumor on the street was that he had a wife and a couple kids stashed somewhere in the West. Vasilii wore a plain gold band wedding ring and on occasion would disappear for weeks or months at a time.

_So Vasilii where are you? Come out and play so we can sort your kind out._

Sterling's rumor mill was showing that Vasilii was in Austria, the Czech Republic, or in Eastern Germany. It made sense - After the Cold War, a large chuck of the _Volksdeutsche_ community in the Soviet Union used the right of return law to emigrate back to eastern Germany and Austria. Vasilii accent and sometime unusual word choice would not raise questions or comments like it would in western Germany.

Locklear had some teenage hacker spice a facial recognition program into the anti-pick pocket and highway monitoring cameras throughout the country. Hopefully, there were so many that not even 'plain-face' could avoid detection.

_Sod this bloody lot of bad luck. This was worst than any surveillance exercise than MI-5 could ever come up with._

Some members of the Special Boat Service were trained by Britain's counterintelligence service on surveillance and counter surveillance techniques. Locklear had undergone some very imaginative ones, including one where the target would not show for days, just to wear the watchers down.

Having been up for the past thirty six hours, Timothy Locklear, called it a night even though it was now nine o'clock in the morning.

Just as he fell asleep, someone was shaking the ex-regimental sergeant major.

"What the bloody fuck are you ..."

It was one of the Global Justice agents, Goldman, an American.

"We got a hit on the public surveillance camera. Our man's cover legend is Herr Rudolf Schultz, of _Schultz AG Berater_, some kind of economic consulting firm registered in Austria. Stirling is talking to some pal's at the Hilton. Under the nom de gurre, Bauer, he met with a Swiss banking type for some poached salmon and white wine. Unfortunately, the banker is already in the air on a Swiss Air flight back to Zurich and getting the Swiss to play ball is not likely, sir."

"What time is it?"

"Eight in the evening. He is at _Aparthouse_ 20, in _Wenceslas_ Square, top floor. He is with a young girl, age thirteen or fourteen, the desk guy says that she is Maria Sophia Bauer, supposedly his daughter. The cleaning staff is reporting that they found no firearms when they cleared the apartment. However, they don't check the usual hiding places."

Timothy Locklear slid into his duty gear. Blackhawk assault vest, Mossberg 590 pump shotgun with standoff device and tactical light, door knockers, rubber baton rounds, two DefTech No. 25 distraction devices, '_Polizei_' pullover to kept the law abiding locals from interfering, Nomex hood and gloves, and a GLOCK 19 9x19mm pistol, in case, Vasilii decided to go out in a blaze of glory.

Taking several deep breaths to control the permission adrenaline rush, Locklear headed to the conference room.

Everyone was ready. The intel was good. The local cops agreed to cordon off the area in case Vasilii made a run for it. However, the Chinese embassy was tipped off and were insisting that Vasilii be extradited back to China instead of Britain.

_Shove your protest up your arse. By the time the politics are sorted out, Vasilii will be in Global Justice custody and in America_.

Forty minutes later, everyone was in place. The television was turned unto _Dying for You_, the Czech equivalent of a Mexican _telenovela_. The two inhabitants were in the main room. One was watching the television and the other was by kitchen.

Everyone knew the layout of the room down to the individual pieces of furniture. Everyone knew the location of the target. The curtains were shut so the snipers would not come into play.

Slowly to police evacuated the hotel and the surrounding area as not to spook the target.

The assault team made its way to the appointed door.

"Smell something." One of the Global Justice agents whispered.

"Gas leak. Shit, we find him and he is already dead."

"Shut up," Locklear ordered, "No one is to fire a single round, no flash bangs. Safe your weapons, now. We are going to kick down the door, run in, grab our two targets, and get out. If he resists, use your nightsticks. In and out fast or the gas will take you too. The local gas company can handle the gas leak."

_Shame for a fighter like Boiarskii to fall to something as pedestrian such as a gas leak._

Then Timothy Lear kicked down the door and the top floor erupted into a ball of flame two hundreds of a second later.

The last thing Timothy Locklear saw was a wall of lame coming at him.

What prevented the local authorities from having to identify the individual members of the assault team via DNA and dental records were the Nomex flash hoods. The superheated air cooked their lungs. It was the only part of the entire operation that worked at it was designed.

It was a classic back draft that all firefighters feared. However, they never located the bodies of Vasilii Boiarskii or his 'daughter'.


	16. Troubles at Yamanouchi Mountain

World's Best Assassin

XIV – Troubles at Yamanouchi Mountain

By Pat Squared

Yori approached her ailing father and kissed him on the cheek.

Master Sensei was weak. His once strong frame was eaten away by a cancer. Yori did not know what was worse. The cancer or the poison the doctors administered to combat it.

Hirotaka was there like a lamprey attached to its meal. He was all _too_ eager for her father to die. However, Hirotaka hands would have to be clean for him to pass the initiation ceremonies.

If Yori was a son, she would have been the next one to sit on the dais. However she was not. The other clan elders were loathed to admit a _konichi_ into the inner circle of power, especially one who children were fathered by a foreign barbarian.

Her former childhood friendship with Hirotaka was strained. Years ago, she chose to give her heart to another, even if her would not be in a position to reciprocate her love. She chose to give away her virginity to another and gave birth to another man's child. She chose an outsider over the heir apparent to the dais of the Yamanouchi clan. Hirotaka would never forgive her snub. Now he wanted to break her spirit.

Now, Hirotaka was her enemy. As long as her father held unto the dais, Yori could ignore Hirotaka pointed requests saying that she was on a special assignment for her father. However, every time she returned, her father was falling weaker. His spirit, his _chi_ was weakened.

Her father knew that the trends of power were slipping and that in his death, his child and grandchildren would become vassals of an enemy.

Hirotaka was already making alliances - Alliances that could spell the end of the Yamanouchi clan. Since the end of the war, Yamanouchi students generally ended up in the ranks of the Japanese National Police. They battled the _boryokudan_, the modern Japanese Yakuza.

Hirotaka was always too close to the traitor Fukushima.

Yori was watching her father's work slip into the hands of criminals and there was not much she could do.

_Ron, please track down the assassin_.

She heard Hirotaka brag to Fukushima about having the World's Best Assassin on his payroll. If Hirotaka is caught being involved, he would be disgraces and maybe, Yori would have the chance to save the clan.


	17. Meeting an Old Rival

World's Best Assassin

XVII – Meeting an Old Rival

By Pat Squared

She almost died of a heart attack when she saw his face.

The buffoon that she once dismissed grew up and became a man of power, a man of influence, a man for good or ill will forever the course of the world.

There were burns on his face and arms.

She recognized him, not from the news documentaries, but from a thirteen year old memory.

The voice that once sacred her straight sounded so ... weary.

For the first time in her life, she lacked the words to describe to describe what she felt.

"Come ... Come inside." She quickly muttered.

Inside came the weary man and a young teenager.

_Is it his daughter? What's her name ... Melody Anne. Can't be with the way she looks at him. It's not the look that a daughter has for a loving father._

He muttered some words in a language she did not understand. The young lady walked into the living room, grabbed a book off the bookcase, and started reading.

"Sheena, I need your help."

She didn't know what to think. Ron Stoppable/Vasilii Boiarskii was current ranked higher on international wanted lists than she ever was in her heyday.

"If they find out that you were here, my kids ..."

"Tell them that I threatened you, that I held you against you will. Tell them I threatened to disembowel your kids if you do not cooperate. As for your warrants, I changed the fingerprints in your file, swapped them with a dead man's. So if anyone suspects, offer them your fingerprints."

He gave her a conspiratory wink.

"So that you will pass the lie detectors, I am making all these threats and many more. Feel free to add more threats - unless you have totally sworn off technology, you probably saw all the news documentaries about Vasilii Boiarskii, the psychopathic merchant of death."

The blond man grinned, it was goofy, eerily familiar goofy.

"What do you need - Money or someone to smuggle you out of the Czech Republic? My vineyards ships wine all over the world."

"Just your counsel – I have fallen so far."

The next eight hours, she witnessed a confession, an exorcism of the tortured soul. There was no holding back, no shading of the truth, no justification for the acts he committed. He laid out his sins. He did not ask for forgiveness, pity, or understanding.

_Between enemies there is only honest truth for lies are only needed between friends._

Only a fallen hero such as herself could understand the sleepless nights, the drugs, the drinking to excess to silence the screams in one's head, to still the nightmares.

Only one that has fallen so far such as herself, could understand what it's like to be buried under the inadequacies of one failures. She did not know how he did not give into the temptation to end it all.

She intimately knew every scar on her wrists, every attempted overdose, every poison she injected into her veins would not silence the voices, that the screams would forever play like an endless loop tape playing the same song over and over again.

Now she knew that the day that the scream died that her soul would die as well. That her right to breath, to smile, to experience those little joyful moments with her unknowing husband and children will be extinguished as the first cigarette she ever smoked.

There was little hope that she could offer her old rival. Only that she would keep an eye on Svetlana and keep her out of the fray.

He stayed overnight and he made breakfast. After the meal, he and his guest cleaned the kitchen, wiped down the house, and he parted. She knew that she would never see him again. It was sad – Today she made a new friend and he would forever be an old memory.


	18. Bargins

World's Best Assassin

XVIII – Bargins

By Pat Squared

Colonel Tsing Xia He watched as the firing squad ended the life of Lu Ah Chow. He had witnessed many executions, but none disturbed him like the killing of his most gifted subordinate.

_Killing the messenger doesn't change the facts._

However the powers that be needed a scapegoat. Tsing Xia He had long witnessed Beijing killing off its best soldiers because their superiors needed someone to be the whipping for their mistakes. Since Ah Chow was a now a cripple, he was useless to the state.

In a day or so, Ah Chow's widow would be billed for the cost of the execution and the disposal cost for his body.

The only comfort he could offer her was the fact the he drugged up Ah Chow with poppy tears so that Ah Chow couldn't feel the pain when the incompetent 'marksmen' of the firing squad did their thing. As Ah Chow's commanding officer, Colonel Tsing ended his subordinate's suffering groans with a well placed round to the base of Ah Chow's skull.

Vasilii Boiarskii was not some street scum that any rookie police office could handle. He was a highly skilled killer who successfully fended off death many times.

Boiarskii had defeated a Global Justice/Interpol special operations task force in Prague and evade capture. However the slugs sitting at a desk in Beijing believed that just because the decreed it, that it would automatically happen.

Hence his latest orders ... get Boiarskii or suffer Lieutenant Lu's fate. Tsing Xia He did not want his wife to be billed for the bullets used in his execution.

The only thing Colonel Tsing hated more than the desk slugs was the man on the other end of the phone line. Fukushima was Japanese. He was a criminal. He enjoyed raping and pimping little girls. However, Fukushima was a reliable source of information about the power struggles within the Japanese National Police.

Colonel Tsing remembered debriefing Lu Ah Chow. Vasilii Boiarskii was surprisingly more considerate to someone who attempted to kill him than the slugs back in Beijing towards an unlucky soldier.

The son that Vasilii killed was a traitor. Should the person have been anyone but the son of a high ranking party member, there would be no hunt and Lu Ah Chow would be alive to see his son grow up. However, Boiarskii killed the son of the man being groomed to head Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Fukushima had the information that he needed.

Boiarskii was a dedicated family man with a wife and kids in the United States.

However, Fukushima would not deliver the identities to him without some concessions.

_What concessions – Fukushima already has first pick through all the females prisoners at the state detention farms. He gets his brothels filled. That is more than any Japanese bandit has a right to expect._

Colonel Tsing started bargaining. As much as he hated Fukushima, he didn't want his wife and daughter to pay for the bullets to his execution.


	19. Things Fall Apart at Yamanouchi

Warning: Rape

World's Best Assassin

XIX – Things Fall Apart at Yamanouchi

By Pat Square

Today would be Master Sensei's last day as the thirty five head of the Yamanouchi clan. The cancer accelerated though his system.

Now all the uncertainty was on which organ would fail first and would start the chain reaction that would send the grandmaster to join his ancestors.

Yori and her twin daughters, Maiko and Mae, watched as Master Sensei gasped for another breath.

Her daughters said their goodbyes to their grandfather, and now it was Yori's turn.

"Yori-ko ... I release you from your oaths to the clan. You ... you are free to follow your conscience. The scroll is by the bedside. I remember when I first saw you. You were a small little thing. I was afraid to hold you ... I feared that I would be clumsy and drop you."

Yori held back the tears as her father was trying to grab another breath.

"Go ... Go now before I pass on. The elders ... they think that my mind went with my body. They have ignored my pleas for someone but Hirotaka to be master. Hirotaka's claws extend and when I die, he will hurt you. I see it in his eye. Leave now."

Yori picked up the scroll, gathered her two daughters, and went to her quarters. Hirotaka was inside, waiting.

"The old man will not last to set the rising of the sun. Why do you think that you can leave now?"

Yori looked Hirotaka in the eye.

"I am carrying out Master Sensei's last command. I and my daughter are to leave. I wish you well in the running of your clan."

Hirotaka laughed.

"The old man is dead. Still breathing, but for all intents and purposes he is dead. I am the new master sensei now. My absolute command is that you stay here and serve me as my second wife. If you don't, your two beautiful daughters will go to Fukushima's brothels and star in bondage videos."

The term second wife was the Japanese euphemism for a mistress.

Nearby were three of Hirotaka's cronies. Yori could hold off Hirotaka, but her daughters were only thirteen. They did not yet have the skills necessary to defeat the Hirotaka's bodyguards and evade capture. She had no choice but to submit to Hirotaka's vile desires.

Hirotaka barked out an order. Her daughters were to be taken to a remote corner of the compound and held unmolested.

However if they were any escape attempt, any attempt at suicide, the guards were to use them as Hirotaka was going to use her. He bade them to watch what would happen.

Yori hated the rape. Only one man, the father of her twins ever had her. He was gentile, kind, everything Hirotaka was not. As Hirotaka did his thing, Yori kept thinking back towards the one she loved. She could only hope that he would forgive her deception, her hiding her kids from him.

The rape hurt. Hirotaka enjoyed beating up his new toy. Soon there was not a portion of her body that was not bruised or covered in filth. However was hurt worse was that her daughters were forced to watch their mother shamed.


	20. Bait

World's Best Assassin

XX - Bait

By Pat Squared

Dr. Director was afraid to look into a mirror. Every time, she tried to control the Stoppable problems, things got worse.

In front of her was the intelligence that former FBI Special Agent Sterling acquired before his untimely death.

Dr. Director and Global Justice was in the mother of all political minefields. Ron Stoppable, Global Justice Special Agent, scion of a line of traitors, scion of an _SS Einzatgruppen_ _Sturmbannfurher_, murderer, torturer, criminal mastermind. There was enough ammo for conspiracy theorists to lay the blame for every assassination, every act of terrorism, every act of evil and deception to the cabal running Global Justice. The SS would look like the Vienna Boy's choir compared to Global Justice if they world linked Vasilii's crimes to Ron Stoppable.

The signs were all there. It was all in the files, but no one connected the dots. Until, he flipped everyone was happy that he was on Global Justice's payroll.

Her most successful operative now could be the Achilles heel that unravels everything.

There would be no more attempts to arrest Vasilii Boiarskii. She reluctantly, but personally, put a kill on sight order on Vasilii Boiarskii's head.

After this operation, everyone up and down the ranks would be vetted again. There will be no more ticking landmines to blow up in Global Justice's face.

_Funny, how we become more and more like our enemies the more we fight them._

Dr. Director dialed the number that she had for the last mercenary, the one that predicted the fate of the other three. However, this time a male voice was on the end of the line.

"_Mushi mushi_."

"_Hai_, is Miko there?"

"Miko is temporarily unavailable, family emergency. However, I can reach an accommodation. Cherry blossoms fall into my jar of pickled plums."

_He knows the key phrase._

"Same deal I made plus an additional two million Euros."

"Sorry, but we do not need any equipment or logistical support from Global Justice. We just need a free hand, an additional five million, a blank, signed presidential pardon in our hands in case the operation gets a little messy and there is collateral damage, and one more thing..."

Dr. Director felt a chill going up her spine.

"We understand that you have Vasilii Boiarskii's, I mean Ron Stoppable's, family in custody. We need them, wife and kids, to serve as ... bait. We will pick them up ourselves so that you look blameless. Expect a few agents with nasty bumps on their heads."

"What?"

Dr. Director was shocked. They knew the secret. She could not back out of the deal now.

"After all if Boiarskii found out about this deal, you will find yourself in the middle of a mushroom cloud. They do not go well with the decoration of the playground at Pine Crest Park. We are great believers in discretion."

It was agreement drafted by the devil, but the devil offered her salvation. When she agreed, Dr. Director knew that she had just sold her soul.


	21. Challenge

World's Best Assassin

XXI – Challenge

By Pat Squared

Melody Anne Stoppable was carefully planning her entry into the world of villainy. However unlike the other villains who wasted their time breeding killer poodles, stealing some mystical amulet, or melting the largest chuck of cheese in the world for some foolish artistic reason, Melody Anne wanted to make a statement. No spinning tops of doom, automated lasers, disco balls of doom, killer robots, mutated insects, or even hypnorays. She simply wanted to make her enemy's blood to flow down the streets the traditional American way – lead, lead, lead, and more lead.

She vowed to crush her enemies, see them driven before her, and hear the lamentation of their next of kin before she put a bullet in them too.

Her oldest brother (but younger than her by a year and two inches shorter so he's still her little brother), Ronald Dean Stoppable Junior, came out second best in a fight with the entire fifth and sixth grade bullies union. Grandma Possible and her mom were at the hospital while the doctors treated him for internal injuries, fractures, and concussions.

The Stoppable family was on its own. Six GJ agents were babysitting her brother and two sisters at school and yet the bullies were able to work over her brother for an entire recess period before two GJ agents _discover_ her brother. He was so badly hurt that the paramedics were surprised that he made it to the hospital.

Grandma and grandpa Stoppable disowned their son and their grandkids, saying that Ron was adopted and was always a bad seed.

Melody Anne stared at Ms. Fallow, her GJ appointed babysitter. She hated the lady. Ms. Fallow was far too out of shape to handle a field assignment and far too stupid to be trusted with anything that required independent thought.

_A certified charter member of the rubber gun squad._

Her daddy taught her the term when he snuck her down to the gun range at Global Justice and taught her how to shoot a pistol. Her mom was not too happy about it, but her dad made a deal. Melody Anne earned all A's, no demerits, and picked up her room every day without prompting, and he followed through.

Now, Melody Anne couldn't wait for the day that she could apply that skill in the real world.

Fallow snapped, "What are you looking at, Missy Stoppable?"

_My first moving, live interactive target, bitch._

Instead Melody smiled and calmly stated, "I noticed that you are beginning to break out."

"I don't believe you."

But Ms. Fallow was checking her face in her compact as soon as Melody started walking to the bathroom.

She closed the door. She knew there were surveillance cameras in here with the perverts eagerly watching the video feed whenever she bathed or used the toilet. They were probably swapping the images on the internet with other like minded perverts. It was one more strike for which they would have to pay.

However, the bathroom was the last refuge of physical privacy. Melody would die before she let Ms. Fallow see her cry. Melody didn't want to cry, but sometimes, she had to. She had to be as tough as her father. However, things were moving out of her control. With the exception of Grandma Possible, everyone else in the family could not leave the house without a visible escort. There were shrinks to 'help the family', but they were the enemy.

Global Justice took everything that Melody could have used. Her computer and the phone lines were tapped so she could not uplink a message to the secret family only website Uncle Wade set up without exposing her last communication link to her father.

It was late and Melody did not want to eat. Grandma Possible was gone, and Melody did not want to be indebted to an enemy for her meals. They would not let her in the kitchen especially near the knives. They were treating her as if she was already a ninja.

_Someday_, she vowed, _I will sneak inside their base and blow it up_.

Melody was taking a bath when the door was kicked in. A man with a sick smile examined her.

The kidnappers were speaking in Japanese. Melody knew the stuff in the phrase books, but otherwise they could have been speaking Martian.

Melody tried to squirm out of the man's grasp, but he was far too strong. Not even being slippery with soapy water stopped him from grabbing her and hauling her into a waiting ambulance.

They grabbed a robe like cloth and wrapped her up like a mummy with hospital tape and ace bandages including her face so that she could not see.

Melody fought until the chemicals dragged her into the darkness.


	22. Svetlana's Surprise

World's Best Assassin

XXIII – Svetlana's Surprise

By Pat Squared

Svetlana Netrebko hated the waiting.

Her hostess was kind, considerate, and was always willing to share a host of funny stories about Vasilii Boiarskii and the pants that always seemed to come off at the most inconvenient times. And the boxer shorts with the hearts which brought back memories of her intimate times with Vasilii.

Those stories brought a laugh to the lonely girl. It was refreshing for her mentor, her lover to be referred as a hero, instead of a villain.

Svetlana only hoped that she could have such fine adventures one day.

Svetlana was content to read to old leather bound books and watch her hostess' children as they formed a pack to pull pranks against their new 'older sister.'

However, Svetlana was constantly worried about Vasilii.

Vasilii was hurt. It was a close thing, the fire blast was more power than even she could imagine. He walked and acted as things were normal, but at night he whimpered like a child anytime his burns came in contact with something solid. The burns Vasilii received protecting her were nasty, especially the one on his back.

She remembered traveling the crawl spaces and eventually hiding in the laundry room where they stole some staff uniforms before they walked out. It was there that she first felt sick to her stomach.

Now she was constantly sick and lightheaded. She had a hard time getting up without feeling the urge to throw up. It was not the smoke of the fire. Two weeks in the countryside cleared out all the old pollution out of her lungs.

Svetlana knew what it was. The madam lectured all the girls about birth control, diseases, and the signs of pregnancy, before making them watch the videos and sending the other girls out in the streets. Her period did not come. The sickness in the morning. Everything pointed to a truth that she did not want to face alone.

Svetlana couldn't let her hostess know. The hostess may be willing to help her as long as she could work, but Svetlana knew that the hostess may be reticent to deal with a pregnant fourteen year old.

Svetlana was now responsible for two lives. If Vasilii was there she knew that he would support his new family. But she was alone in a foreign land with no skills, no family ties, and no work papers.

Svetlana woke up earlier and earlier every day so that the hostess wouldn't catch her throwing up. She couldn't let the hostess know now. However that would not work for long. Even wearing the work clothes the other vineyard hands wore, it soon will be obvious that she was pregnant.

Svetlana was already getting worried since the hostess looked at her kind of funny. The fact that Svetlana appeared exhausted was not helping.

At night, Svetlana would put the hostess' kids asleep telling them of the training games Vasilii taught her and the Russian legends that her parents taught her. Every time, she looked at the kids, she wondered if she could still work as their governess, or if she would be turned out.

After she tucked the sleepy heads into bed, she would go into her 'room' and wonder what would happen.

Svetlana vowed to be the perfect governess so that the hostess would let her stay. Then she would cry herself to sleep.


	23. Slippery Slope

World's Best Assassin

XXIII – Slippery Slope

By Pat Squared

Dr. Betty Director was livid.

Twenty four Global Justice agents were either dead or in the hospital.

_This was never part of the deal._

However, the Asian concern that that lady represented had the information that would bring Global Justice down. Dr. Betty Director was in no position to object. She had authorized them to use any means they saw fit, even if collateral damage was involved. She had given them a signed, blank presidential pardon that exempts them from any criminal or civil liability.

If Vasilii Boiarskii is connected to Global Justice - All the lives saved and wars averted would not count. All the good deeds performed and lives sacrificed on the alter of world peace would be in vain. Global Justice would cease to exist.

Today, Dr. Director was afraid to examine herself. She knew that she was seduced by the ends and failed to consider the means she used, until it was far too late for redemption. She had become as evil as Ron Stoppable, but she was so fixated on stopping Ron that she would be willing to sacrifice any life, including Kim and her children to keep Global Justice in the fight against evil.

Now, she was powerless and lost the initiative. Others were now making the real decisions, she had spent all her cards and was now drawing dead.

Now she understood how someone as caring and loyal as Ron became a monster.

Her secure fax rang. Two minutes later, there was an invitation to a head viewing. The price for admission and proof was an additional $50 million Euros. She would only have to reply back and place the funds in an escrow account.

The great dance had ended and Ron Stoppable would have his head served on a silver platter.


	24. Chinese Response

World's Best Assassin

XXIV – Chinese Response

By Pat Squared

"Colonel Tsing, have you any good news on the killer of my son."

"Yes, Comrade Ambassador. I have located the killer's family in America."

"Get them! I want them all to suffer!"

Tsing cleared his throat.

"They are already in the custody of Global Justice. Because of the event in Vienna, anyone we send over to America with an official status is baby-sat by the FBI counterintelligence division. Not just the consular officers, but even the household staff as well. As for clandestine insertions, Minister Quin informed me that there is to be no more military personnel sent outside of China without his personal permission."

Wen Lo examined the Colonel. Quin was not politically powerful enough to balk Wen Lo's patrons, but Wen Lo knew that to seek permission will cost him both face and more money.

"Hire someone ... dependable. Get his family. Make them bait. Make sure that I see that fornicating barbarian dead. Make his wife and daughters brothel girls, his sons eunuchs. I want Boiarskii to die. When he dies, I want his spirit to wander unmourned for all eternity. Break him, slowly. I want to personally witness his punishment."

_Merciful Buddha, how am I going to meet the demands of Fukushima._

Tsing cleared his throat.

"Comrade Minister, hiring someone dependable requires both money and favors. Especially if the have to snatch the entire family from under the watch of Global Justice. I have contacts with a highly regarded Yakuza _oyuban_ in Japan who is upset at Boiarskii for personal and professional reasons. He is experienced in both kidnappings and contract murders. However, to have him agree to such an act, I have to make _significant_ concessions. He will want to move poppy tears through our ports."

Wen Lo was quiet for a minute. Tsing started wondering if his wife was going to receive the bill for his execution tomorrow morning.

"No way. Even the Dowager Empress, the traitorous bitch, fought to prevent that obscenity. What's next, does he want us to bow to the Japanese Emperor and yell _banzai_? Having to suffer at the hands of Western ghosts is bad enough. Bah, our children's mind is being polluted by Western ideology.

"However, the Japanese … They raped our cities, turned our sisters and daughters into comfort women, and used our people as lab rats for poison weapons. If we had the power back then that we have now, I would kill every filthy Japanese and salt their fields. I hate them and will not let even one affect how we run our nation."

The ambassador was visably shaking with rage.

"Tell him that I will allow him to transship under our control, but not sell within our borders. Tell him that we will help him smuggle girls, boys, jade, drugs, and other contraband in and out of Cambodia, Vietnam, and North Korea. However, I do not want to hear any talk of poison being pushed on our people or our heritage being smuggled out."

Colonel Tsing saluted.

He now had a change to survive and maybe make Marshal someday. Minister Quin would be await his report. IfColonel Tsingwas lucky, maybe ... just maybe he witness the last act of Wen Lo's downfall. There will be no one to put to pistol to the back of Wen Lo's head at his execution. Let the fornicating devil suffer.

"Yes, Comrade Ambassador."


	25. Pushed Too Far

World's Best Assassin

XXV – Pushed Too Far

By Pat Square

Vasilii Boiarskii held his breath while the guard made his rounds. Crouching behind the server, he prayed that the ancient stalking techniques are as viable today as they were during the Japanese 'Era of a Country at War.'

For three days, Boiarskii lived in the ventilation systems of _SIG AG SegaIntersettle_. Even though Ron Possible spend a great deal of time with Wade Load and Felix Renton, managing to pick up some elements of the hacker's art, he was not some _ubertech_ who could crack systems in his sleep.

Thankfully, Boiarskii managed get some passwords. Slowly he inched towards the server. Using some secretaries password would only tip off the bank that someone on the inside was hacking the system. He have to get the password of the internal auditors.

Opening the main server, Ron examined the unit. It was not going to be easy. Fiber optics allowed for faster speeds and better security. He could not unplug the wire, attach the recording device, and reattach the wire. The system security software will detect tampering and the system administrator will call in a tech, which will bring in the cops, and Ron did not want to see the end of his days in a Swiss jail.

Ron reluctantly closed up the system and returned to the ventilation system. One step forward and three steps back.

The assassin did not leave much of a trail, but money did. It takes a great deal of money to recruit and equip such a highly skilled contract killer. It takes money to buy information about security systems, guard schedules, and the other intelligence required for such a hit. Rats do not work for free.

Slowly, Ron spent an hour inching his way upwards through the labyrinth of ventilation shafts. He needed help and there was only one person he knew that was capable of delivering the goods.

He could only hope that the backdoor channel that Wade set up for the family to keep in contact with him was not yet compromised.

Ron found a computer linked to the outside. Ron entered the system and typed the URL.

Suddenly there was a familiar face on the monitor.

"Who's there?"

"No names. This is the guy who wears boxers with little red hearts."

"Christ, we are on a party line."

Fate has decreased that there was not enough shit in Ron's life.

"Can you tell me if the wife and kids are safe?"

"... I thought that you got them. They disappeared and in the process Global Justice lost twenty five agents. Dr. Director told me that it was you. Someone left a symbol spray painted on your living room wall. I am sending you an image. Be careful, it's a trap."

"Wade, I have no choice, buddy. If anything happens, make sure ... that Kim and the kids ..."

"The tracking chips are not in them any more. The anti-tamper detector is buzzing."

"I will find them, Wade. Don't ask me how, but I will find them."

The image was an all too familiar image. It was the secret symbol of the master sensei of the Yamanouchi Clan.


	26. Older Sister

World's Best Assassin

XXVI – Older Sister

By Pat Squared

Svetlana hated herself.

She never knew that loneliness could physically hurt so much.

She saw the look in his eyes. Vasilii was resigned to his death. Part of her knew that he would not live, that he would not be about to return. That was why he left her with the hostess.

Svetlana would often find herself staring off in the distance or in tears. She was losing control of herself. Svetlana's world was collapsing.

_How can I raise a kid, if I can not even handle myself._

Svetlana washed the dishes as she tried to make sense of her life.

A voice woke Svetlana from her daytime nightmare.

It was the hostess.

"Svetlana, I know."

Svetlana wanted to run away from the truth, but she was paralyzed with fear. She was going to be thrown out and left to fend for herself.

"How long has it been ... since you last bled?"

Svetlana tried to reply, but no words can out of her mouth.

"Two months?"

All she could do was nod. She was afraid to look her hostess in the face.

Svetlana was afraid as she saw the hostess walk up to her.

"Svetlana, I'm not going to throw you out. I owe Ron ... Vasilii everything. He saved me and I can not begin to repay him. However there are some things that have to be done, for the sake of your baby."

Svetlana wept as Sheena held her. She had a home and a new older sister.


	27. Freedom

World's Best Assassin

XXVII – Freedom

By Pat Squared

Ron Stoppable was as close as he ever would be to happiness.

He had a final mission that promised him salvation, a chance to redeem himself in his own eyes. The price would be his life, but that was a small price to pay.

His life, his actions now had a purpose. He had a reason for being even if the reason is only temporary.

Ron accepted that Vasilii Boiarskii was as much part of him as the freckles on his face. There was no difference between Ronald Dean Stoppable, the family man and Global Justice Senior Supervisory Special Agent, and Vasilii _Alexovich Boiarskii_, the scion of a _Schultzstaffel Standartenfuhrer_ and the latest incarnation of the anti-Christ.

Friedrich Nietzsche once wrote about the _master-mentality_ and _slave-mentality_. The master-mentality is the mentality of that a noble-man activity brings forth from his mind. The slave mentality developes as a reaction to stimuli in the mind of a weaker man. The master thinks in term of bad and good, while the slave uses good and evil.

Without Ron Stoppable's slave mentality, Vasilii Boiarskii would have long since become the living incarnation of his _Schultzstaffel_ great-grandfather. Without Vasilii Boiarskii, Ron Stoppable would not be able to enact the harsh actions needed to protect the world, and millions of lives would have been snuffed because good men did nothing.

They were not diametric opposites, but simply two facits among many in a fucked up life.

_Übermensch und Wurm_; Superman and Worm;

_Fuhrer und Verbannter_; Leader and Outcast;

_Tugendhafter Ritter und schändliches Ungeheuer_. Virtuous Knight and Vile Monster.

Many have chosen the easy life. A nine to five existence with a mortgage and some vague notion to one day retire and enjoy the golden years and pamper one's grandkids. However, Ron lived by the motto, "Never be normal!"

The path of the sword and enlightenment was the same for Ron Stoppable. However the price of the path was to slowly, painfully mutilate one's soul.

_The way of the warrior is death._

It was time for Ron's body to catch up with his soul.

Vasilii Boiarskii knew that he was out of practice. He was out of his element. He could not hope to blend into the local population. The enemy would be on their home ground. Their people better trained to silently blend into a mountainous woodland environment than he was. And they have baited a trap with the six people he could not walk away from.

The only two things Ron had were initiative and the inherent weakness of any trap. It is open until it's sprung.

That is all he needed.

Ron looked at the pilot. _Poor guy, I hate to be him when they found out that I tricked him into giving me a ride_.

The fake military orders that Ron passed around would not hold up to a detailed inquiry. However, no one had any reason to believe the orders were not genuine. It came over the secure fax system with the appropriate codes.

_Thank God for bureaucratic staff officers._

A combat oriented officer or NCO would question the veracity of an order deploying a single Marine Corps scout-sniper on a reconnaissance operation and use the senior NCO network to find out if everything was on the up and up. But to a bureaucrat an order from the Office of Naval Intelligence was not something to question.

Four years in the Marine Corps, finally paid off. Despite a dozen years since he last spit-shined his shoes, he remembered the lingo and responded in the proper Pavlovian manner. No one suspected Staff Sergeant Ronald Taylor. Being closed mouth was part and parcel of being one of the world's deadliest killing machines.

Vasilii critically examined his weapons.

For long range engagements, he planed to use a suppressed .308 Win Tactical Operations _Tango 51_ with an 18" barrel and Leupold Mark IV M3 10x scope. It was far too accurate for his skills, but it was rugged, reliable, and it was available for the taking. Some US Army armorer in Okinawa will be upset that a prized rifle will show up as missing the next time the unit underwent a small arms inventory. For up close, Ron snagged a suppressed Heckler & Koch UMP-45 and an accurized Colt Model 1911A3 .45 ACP pistol.

However, Ron knew that if weapons were needed, he screwed up badly. His plan was simple. Locate the family, get them out, and then later pay the good folks at Yamanouchi a visit once he smuggled his family out of Asia.

Ron double checked his gear. The genuine USMC gear was harder to acquire than the weapons, for any Marine loved his gear almost as much as his rifle and keep a close eye on it. However, due to budgetary considerations, the Navy was replacing its Marine Corps sentries with local rent-a-cops paid minimum wage. Vasilii was careful to spread out his _shopping trips_ across four separate supply depots. Ron had to take the BDU's to a local laundry mat and repeatedly wash them until they appeared suitably aged.

If his family were already dead, Vasilii vowed to acquaint the Yamanouchi Clan with the Wild, Wild East version of justice, Vendetta mixed with sadism.

The jump point was close. Ron disconnected himself from the aircrafts internal oxygen feed and turned the air bottle strapped to his chest. He then signaled the loadmaster to lower the rear cargo door

Due to weight constraints, there was no reserve chute, not spare air bottle. Ron's only protection against frostbite at 32,000 feet was the rubber wetsuit he wore under his mission gear, and the gloves and fleece-lined jump boots he wore. If anything went wrong, Ron knew that he would make a mighty big splat on the ground below.

Ron was no stranger to being pushed out of a plane. Kim was always throwing him out of a plane whenever they flew to a mission as Team Possible. Tonight would be the first time that he would initiate the jump himself. Not even Kim Possible made a jump from so high in the air.

The best that Ron could do to ensure that nothing was screwed up was to test the air bottles by pissing on them and then feeling where the temperate changed on the bottle to determine if he had a full bottle of O2, dye the chute dark blue and charcoal grey, and to personally repack his chute for a High Altitude, Low Opening jump.

Vasilii double checked the Magellan GPS. It was not as accurate as the military models, but Ron could not acquire a mil-spec GPS unit. However, accuracy within 50 meters would have to be enough. The drop zone was only a minute or two away.

However, no one could give Ron the intelligence he needs. Ron's recollection of the property was over half a decade old. All he knew was that Master Sensei was dead and the new head of the Yamanouchi clan was his enemy. Tradition dictated that the clan members owed their leader loyalty onto death. However, loyalty had its shades of grey. How many, Ron would have to see first hand.

_Best is the enemy of good_.

Ron Stoppable was running against a timetable he knew nothing about and good would have to be good enough. If it was not, Ron Stoppable would become a Jackson Pollack painting.

With that though, Ron threw himself out the rear door of the C130.

Not caring if he died gave Ron a freedom that he had no experienced since he was three years old.


	28. Wheels Within Wheels

World's Best Assassin

XXVIII – Wheels Within Wheels

By Pat Squared

_The Romans were right - Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely!_

Hirotaka, the thirty seventh grandmaster of the Yamanouchi Clan, had it all.

He had dozens of the world's best spy-assassins who would follow his merest suggestion.

He controlled wealth that rivaled those of any Japanese conglomerate.

He controlled her body.

Hirotaka breathed in a delightful sign of contentment. Yori quickly learned that she was expected to sate his needs even in public view of the other Yamanouchi ninja.

Not even a _jingai_ could exhibit the barbaric manners that Hirotaka exhibited.

He and the courtiers that sucked up to the new _jian_ of Yamanouchi was destroying everything her ancestors spent generations working for.

He was turning the once honorable ninja clan into a _yakuza_ auxiliary.

Yori watched as his _best_ men dragged Stoppable-san's family towards the dais.

The thirty year old red hair and the younger kids were in a state of shock. However the oldest two children looked at their _host_ with undisguised loathing. The son was badly injured, but had enough pride to refuse the assistance of an enemy. He would walk into the fire if it would spite Hirotaka. The daughter … examined Hirotaka as if one might examine a piece of toilet paper stuck to a shoe.

Yori noted that the pervert Fukushima was already calculating the profits he could make from pimping out Stoppable-san's daughters. She knew that Hirotaka would eventually hand over the children, Stoppable-san's and her twins, to the _yakuza_ pimp. The only thing that he was waiting for was to eliminate Stoppable-san.

Yori spent her time as Hirotaka's _seminal sewer_ trying to work out a plan to escape Hirotaka's grasp. Barring that, she would settle for killing the man and his _yakuza_ confidant.

Most of the ninjas of the clan were ashamed that the elders selected Hirotaka to be the new master. Hirotaka then thanked the elders by _retiring_ them to the grove and selected his cronies to be their replacements.

Yori had to entertain Hirotaka as his cronies executed the elders they replaced. Blood only served to arouse his base appetites.

However, they made the oath before they had the true measure of the monster. Yori spent what little discretionary time she had to cement alliances with those who followed of the old ways of honor. However, there was no Yamanouchi ninja who would violate their oath to the new master.

The followers of the old ways would willingly strike down Hirotaka's cadre, but someone would have to kill the master. Then tradition dictated that the killer would be expected to kill himself. However, Yori was not technically a member of the Yamanouchi clan. Her father signed her release before he died. She could kill him and there would be no onus on her.

However, Hirotaka sensed Yori's murderous intent. He would beat her, weaken her with starvation, and ensure that she would not have any weapons to use against him. She normally weight 52 kilograms, now she weighed 45.

Yori would have only one chance. If she failed … her daughters would pay the price for the rest of their short lives. So she bid her time … growing weaker as the days flowed into weeks.

With the arrival of Stoppable-san's family, maybe soon she would have a chance. They were here as bait. Stoppable may have done monstrous things. However, he would not turn his back on his family.

Stoppable-san was her only hope. Yori would trust that Stoppable-san would give her the opportunity to end Hirotaka's tenture as the thirty seventh grandmaster of the Yamanouchi clan.

"Yori-ko," her _master_ hissed in Japanese, "Take our guest to the temple pavilion. They will room with your daughters. Make sure Stoppable-scum's wife understands that I expect out of her what I expect out of you. Otherwise all the children shall suffer if either one of you do not comply."

Yori started leading the prisoners to their jail.

"Yori-ko, clean up the fiery hair _jingai_. I have two very important guests coming in from China. First, I will train her in how to be a good hostess. Tell the slut that you and her are to ensure that our guest is to be entertained tonight in any fashion they wish. I hate to think what will happen to your children if my guest feel slighted."

_Only someone who is weak inside would put on such a display of power. I must turn his cronies against him._

The _konichi_ of the Yamanouchi clan had perfected a type of warfare that is not available to men. Even though Yori did not have the practice in the arts of love her ancestresses did, her mother's sister show Yori how to use a man's drives against himself. Yori would ensure that Hirotaka's lack of self-confidence and lust will be the rope that hangs him.

_Underestimate this _konichi_ at your peril, Hirotaka-bastard._


	29. Hurbus I

World's Best Assassin

XXIX – _Hubris_

By Pat Squared

Fate punished Ron Stoppable for his _hubris_. The time he got over his fear of heights and fate had to remind him that heights may not kill him, but making impact with a pine tree at sixteen miles an hour, the speed of an Olympic class sprinter, smarts rather nicely.

_Three hundred twenty eight jumps and not one broken bone_ - _Guest that record is shot to hell_.

Ron could not breathe without feeling pain.

Slowly, Ron made an inventory of his body. His legs were functioning. His right arm, right side of his back and ribs were hurt but he could still move. In a short while, Ron knew that he would not be able to move without yelping in pain.

Opening the first aid kit, he popped two tablets of Tylenol III. Hopefully, six milligrams of codeine will keep him functioning. Slowly, so not to aggravate his injuries, Ron gathered up any evidence of his passing.

Landing in the upper branches of a pine tree hurt, but the majority of the evidence of his insertion would be lost in the greenery. Ron slowly crawled down from the upper branches.

Carefully, he moved from stone to stone to avoid leaving a footprint. Size 12 Jump boots do leave a very distinctive track. Hell, size 12 foot prints will tip off any observant tracker that a big footed _jingai_ was traipsing about the forest. In his condition, fighting was not a viable option.

Ahead was a mountain stream. Over the centuries, the ninjas of Yamanouchi prepared hollowed out refuges near the river. The ninjas knew the location of each and every one their ancestors prepared. However, he hoped that the opposition did not stumble the one that he made during his training. Only Yori knew its location. And hopefully they did not turn her.

Ron looked around for the landmarks. A burnt out tree stump … five rocks on the south side of a bend in the stream … An growth of old bamboo.

Two of the three was not bad after ten years. The old growth of bamboo might have been cut down by students to help build their shelters.

Carefully Ron made his way past his hideout careful to rub his sweat on strategic places before doubling back and returning via the fast running mountain creek. If they used dogs, the dogs would pull the handlers away from his hide.

The hide was much smaller than Ron remembered. He put on three inches and thirty pounds since he and Yori built the hide during his first visit to Yamanouchi.

Ron had to back into the hide. Even if his ribs were no broken, he would find it difficult to turn around. Carefully Ron prepared the claymore mine. It would serve two uses. One is to kill however stumbled on his resting place. Two, prevent them from capturing him alive. The 600+ steel ball bearings would shred the opposition. The back blast will end his days.

Carefully, Ron reapplied the camouflage face paint. Tomorrow night would be the night. He popped two more Tylenol III's and tried to get some sleep.

The pain woke Ron from his half-slumber. He groaned as he wiggled his way out of the hide. For better or for worse, he would have to move tonight. The omens were not good. Tonight was a full moon.


	30. Hurbus II

World's Best Assassin

XXX – Hubris II

By Pat Squared

_Anything is possible for a Possible_.

Fate managed to punish the Possible hubris.

As a teen superhero, Kim successfully faced down impossible odds.

As a mother, fate turned a hero into a victim.

She wanted to hate Yori.

Ron was hers. Yet the parentage of Yori's daughters were all two plain.

Kim knew that the future was bleak.

If they were lucky, they would be killed. However, Yori had to dash that hope by informing Kim of Fukushima's number one racket. Kim knew that she was in no condition to fight Hirotaka. He had toyed with her the last time they faced off and that was when Kim way actively fighting against the likes of Shego.

Now the former teen heroine was too far out of shape and lacked the fine tuning to fight against a martial arts master like Hirotaka.

Ron did her a favor when he hurt her the last time she saw him. Nothing Hirotaka did to her could take away her self-respect. Ron beat him to it. She just mutely accepted his violation of her body as the price that a mother would pay to protect her kids.

Hirotaka could not break her by raping her or beating her. There was no spirit to break.

The other two guests were Chinese.

One was a senior military type. He did not partake Hirotaka's offer and was disgusted in his host's behavior. The other one was as vicious as any man could be.

The other man told her that unless her husband surrendered himself that she would suffer in his stead. As he raped her, he beat her, screaming that he was personally going to cut off the genitals of her sons and ensure that her daughters ended up in the most disgusting brothel that could be found.

He heated up an iron rod and started beating Kim until Yori interfered.

Yori muttered something in a Chinese dialect that Kim did not know. She did not have Ron's sponge-like talent for languages.

The man then stuck Yori across the face with the iron. Hirotaka stopped the second swing and told the two women to have there injuries tended to. The last thing that Kim remembered was Yori dragging her back to the bathhouse and tending to her injuries.

The worst part was the looks on her kids face when they saw the state their mothers were when they returned to their cells.

Kim could not look her kids in the eyes. She wanted to fight, but she couldn't do a thing without hurting her kids.


	31. All or Nothing

World's Best Assassin

XXXI – All or Nothing

By Pat Squared

Ron watched powerlessly through his rifle scope as Yori and Kim were beaten up and raped.

However to fire now would doom the two women and his children.

Vasilii put the incident into his accounts receivable column. Everyone would pay for this crime.

One flick of the safety and two point five pounds of squeeze on the trigger would end their lives too rapidly.

Slowly, Vasilii circled towards the temple. There were only a few places suitable for holding prisoners, especially one who knew every secret passage in the Yamanouchi compound.

There was only one place Master Sensei trusted to hold Monkey Fist and Fukushima prior to Global Justice transferring them to a _secure_ facility. It was near the temple.

Slowly by his busted ribs, Vasilii slid on his belly towards the temple, trusting that the Ghille suit and his field craft skills would allow him to get to his kids.

Three hundred … two hundred fifty … two hundred meters … the closer he got the like likely his shot would be off, but the greater chance for being spotted.

At one hundred sixty meters, fate decided to mess with someone else. There were two sentries. Both enjoyed taunting the prisoners. These were not loyal ninja reluctantly following orders to guard prisoners, but supports of the man who hurt his family.

One said something to another and walked off towards a tree.

Vasilii quickly prepared for the shot.

The suppressor reduced the muzzle blast to hiss that sounded like an air brake. The one guarding the prisoner was turning into a grey and rose colored mist.

Number two reacted by dropping down and rolling towards cover. However, he rolled to the wrong tree. A second shot reduced the target to the same state as the first.

There was a very narrow window of opportunity.

Ron sprinted towards the temple.

The prisoners were in shock as he searched the guards for a key. Number two had it.

Ron looked inside. Yori and Kim were badly hurt. There were seven kids. Two that he had not seen before, but instinctively he knew why Yori avoided meeting him face to face since that one time he and Yori got drunk.

Kim was in no condition to lead the kids to safety.

"Yori … get everyone to the river. Don't use the hide we set up. It's booby trapped. Take this."

Yori's eyes widen as she saw the blank passports and cash.

"Remember this … Sheena Hofmann … Rydling Vineyards … Czech Republic. You all will be safe there. Global Justice gave Kim and the kids to that sick fuck. They can not return to America. Don't try to make contact. If I live I will contact you. If not…"

The look in Yori's eyes told him that she knew he would not see them again.

"Inside is an encrypted flash drive with information and bank accounts and passwords. The password is Lotus Blade, one word, all caps. Sheena Hofmann can explain more. Get out. I will deal with the others."

Yori nodded.

"Ron, most of the others are bound by oath to follow Hirotaka's orders. However, they hate Hirotaka. Kill Hirotaka, Fukushima, and the Chinese ambassador. They are the evil ones."

Yori started moving the others towards the contemplation grove.

Ron made his way toward the guest quarters and to his destiny.

All or nothing. It was far too late for half measures.


	32. Regrets

World's Best Assassin

XXXII – Regrets

By Pat Squared

Kim Stoppable hated herself.

He husband and best friend from Pre-K rescued her and she couldn't say a word.

For the past four months, she lived in a nightmare of guilt replaying every word he told her.

She was more of a bitch that Bonnie Rockwaller.

Bonnie at least would admit to being cruel.

Kim took advantage of Ron. She pretended to be his friend. She took the limelight while Ron suffered in silence.

Ron spent years carrying the pain inside and she couldn't be bothered to pay attention. She ignored the moment when Ron withdrawn into himself. She enjoyed his company on her terms and yet she couldn't be bothered to support him when he needed her.

No wonder why he didn't open up to her. He served her and she couldn't …

She deserved what she got.

Now, she would have to live the life of an outcast – a life that Ron suffered for her sake.

Kim took Ron from a woman who loved him even when Kim bound Ron to herself.

Yori still loved Ron. The tears were real.

Kim hated her dry eyes. They told her that she was worthless. Why couldn't she cry?

_Ron was just an object of connivance._

Ron was the one who sacrificed all his dreams for her sake.

He gave up his dreams of putting Middleton, Colorado on the four star culinary map.

He joined the Marine Corps to support her and her unborn daughter.

He joined Global Justice so that he could always protect her.

He sacrificed his life, sanity, and honor for an unappreciative bitch.

During the past four months, Kim wondered what she would say to Ron if she ever saw him again. She wanted to confess, to tell him that she did not deserve him, to let him be free, to beg for his forgiveness.

Yet when the moment came, Kim Stoppable could not utter a word.

The moment came and went. She knew that Ron was going to make the final sacrifice.

Ron was going to die, and she couldn't even say thank you.


	33. Night of the Long Knives

World's Best Assassin

XXXIII – Night of the Long Knives

By Pat Squared

WARNING: TORTURE; LANGUAGE

There simply were too many for one man to defeat.

Night became day and became night again.

Ron Stoppable hung limply from his chains.

His fair skin was burnt by the sun.

His blood flowed freely from the multiple lacerations on his back.

His enemies took their turn inflicting blows with a bamboo cane and hot iron rod.

His legs were broken, his right arm useless.

There were too many injuries for his mind to catalog.

Many times he had fallen into the darkness to only be pulled back from the sweet caress of death.

Hirotaka, Fukushima, and the Chinese ambassador all enthusiastically participated in Ron's torment. They drank down violence, bloodlust, and his suffering in big gulps of madness. Each session only served to feed the demons.

Ron made the mistake of retreating into his mind.

There was no happy memory, no safe place to his consciousness to retreat. For every happy memory was twisted by the demons in his own head.

Ron's only motivation to hang onto his sorry state of existence was the families he left behind. Every moment they spent on hurting a dying man would give Kim, Yori, and the kids another moment to get away and make a new life without him.

Ron groaned as someone release his arms from the chain. His body hit the gravel. It once was white, but was not stained crimson with his blood.

Someone kicked him in the side.

"Where did you send your two bitches and your puppies?"

Ron couldn't determine who spoke. A fist made contact with his face, further swelling up any already swollen eye.

"Where did you send the bitches and your puppies?"

Ron was too far gone to answer.

Someone dragged his inert frame.

"Leave him here to rot. He can't crawl too far."

Someone kicked him in the head. Ron's world faded into darkness.

The sound of crickets awoke Ron just in time for another session.

Ron lost track of how many sessions he endured. All he knew was that his opponents did not have a professional interrogator on their side. No one was trying to attack his sanity, just hurt his body. For that Ron thanked God.

Ron conserved his energy. Hated would only burn the energy reserves that he needed to extend his meaningless existence. He tried to focus his mind elsewhere.

_Two to the two is four. Four to the two is sixteen. Sixteen to the two is … two fifty six. Two fifty six to the two is ... sixty five ... five thirty six. I wear a white petticoat and a little red had, I stand upon a golden stage, the longer I dance ... the shorter I get. I am a ... candle. What will the army and navy find when they look upon heaven's scene? They will find that the streets are guarded by United States Marines. A Marine on sentry duty has no friends. The perfect omelet recipe consists of three eggs, a tablespoon of cream, ..._

Ron was using every trick the sadistic staff at the US Navy Survival Evasion Resistance and Escape school at Warner Springs, California taught him about resisting physical interrogations. However, the opposition was using every physical technique in the book.

A blow to the head returned Ron to the real world.

"So far I have been Mister Nice Guy," Hirotaka snapped, "I have no choice but to step things up a notch."

Ron Stoppable was roughly grabbed as a white hot iron rod made its way towards his left eye.

"Only one eye this time, I want him to be able to see the video we made."

Ron let out a scream as the rod penetrated his left eye. Some head a firm grasp of his head. Ron tried to drive the rod further so that it would take his life as well, but the strong arms wouldn't let him.

"Your wife is pretty tight for a slut. She screams rather nicely too."

Ron was too far gone to put up any physical defiance.

"When she cums, she lets out a river. She is a slut. She is such a slut that she begged me to fuck her even more. She loved the three on one action. Her ass was tight, but I loosened it up. Too bad you are not going to live long enough to get some."

Hirotaka was yelling in his face wetting it with salvia. Suddenly Ron felt a jolt at the base of his spine.

"I am a merciful man, Ron. If you only tell me where you sent Yori, I will end your pain ... Hell, I won't even hunt down your wife and children. Just tell me were you sent that traitorous bitch. I bet that she did not even tell you how she used you. I bet that she did not tell you about your daughters. She is the one who betrayed you. I can end your pain."

_Lies, Hirotaka lies like a serpent._

"You are not so different, you and I. We served causes bigger than ourselves. We both have betrayed by the ones we loved. We have been used and discarded by the powers that be. We can take down those that abandoned us, Ron. All you have to do is say the word and I can release you from the pain. Join me. Let me help you get vengeance on the bitches. You can have your family back, Ron."

Ron felt a needle enter his veins.

"If you agree, all I have to do is push this plunger. There is enough morphine for you to go in a euphoric peace my friend."

Ron knew that he would have only one chance. He had to wait. An animal would bite off his own leg to escape a trap. Ron was not an animal. Ron would wait, suffering in agony, to bait the hunter into the reaches of his jaws.

Ron just let his eyes roll into the back of his head.

"Shit, the fucker is still alive." Fukushima muttered.

"Don't worry. He will break soon. He will give us the location of the bitches. Comrade Minister, how would you like to break in his daughters?"

Ron knew to react now would give up the only weapon he had left.

Someone picked him up and placed him back in the chains. Ron could feel his chest collapsing. It was crucifixion without the cross and nails. They would rest him for just enough to prevent him from dying off too soon.

The sun was rising and the dew was drying up when Hirotaka approached the limp form of Ron Stoppable.

"You have survived five days, a record for this kind of event. Of course, I had to cut the other sessions short. Scheduling demands. However, I have all day and night to get the truth out of your lips."

Hirotaka laughed.

"You were my perfect tool. All it took was a little nudge ... Remember Hencho … I bought a little chip at the liquidation sale. We Japanese rarely truly invent something totally original … we just make things better. With the old one you remembered everything you did. With my version, you would do your assignment and then forget it.

"Thanks to you, my rivals to the dais all died under mysterious circumstance. Thanks to you, obstacles to Fukushima's goal of controlling the central European imported drug market were killed. All I had to do was to tell that pitifully small brain of yours that my enemies were threats to your little redheaded bitch. You would then kill the threat. All those years sneaking through super-villain lairs paid off. It was funny that you were chasing your own shadow, assassin."

Hirotaka smiled invitingly.

"You were the best _assassin_ in the world. You pulled off the impossible hits. You were ruthless, driven to kill, yet you would be able to live _normally_, play with the bitch and puppies without revealing your true nature. But then you fucked up and became a liability. You killed someone dear to an ally of mine. You lose your anonymity. You had to mess up one of my best rackets and for that I have to punish you."

Hirotaka smashed Ron in the cheek.

"You have been a credit to the ones who taught you how to resist pain. You have not broken. Why must you spite me? Master Sensei always compared me to you? Why couldn't you be more like Stoppable-san? Stoppable-san never quits. Stoppable-san is braver than anyone I met. Stoppable-san is my best student. Yori traded me for you? She could have had a husband instead of being a single mother. She should have married me. She should have bore my kids. You cost me my father's love and the love of my life, _jingai_.

"However, I will have the last laugh. Your kids, your wife, your lover all will bear my bastards. Your sons will become my bitches. Your oldest son, Ronald Junior will look great in silk panties. It can be fun being bisexual. I am an equal opportunity rapist."

Ron Stoppable felt Hirotaka's breath in his cheek.

"There is one way left for me to break you. I will enjoy training you to be my bottom ho. You can be my slave. If you are good, I will let you clean up you wife, lover, and daughters with your tongue once I am done breeding them. You might not enjoy this, but I will."

Enraged, Ron Stoppable made his final attack. He lost control of the human inside and became an animal.

Ron awoke with the coppery warm taste of his enemy's life blood. He was drinking down in great gulps as if it was Bueno-sized Coca-cola.

Hirotaka was dying. A section of the right side of his neck was missing.

"I will kill you." Fukushima screamed as he picked up a large stone.

Fukushima struck Ron in the temple and Ron Stoppable fell.

Ron knew that he was dying, that his wounds were mortal. However, his only regret was the fact that he lost control of his emotions too soon. Now the other two would be free to hunt down his loved ones.

Ron Stoppable fell into the darkness with a long list of regrets.


	34. Lassen Sie uns ein wenig reden

**World's Best Assassin**

**XXXIV – **_**Lassen Sie uns ein wenig reden**_

**(Translation: Let Us Have a Little Talk)**

**By Pat Squared**

* * *

If Dr. Betty Director had to rate the most unlike events in her life, today would top the list.

She flew halfway across the world to attend a head viewing.

During her tenure as head of Global Justice, Dr. Director had attended executions. Even once she attended a beheading in Saudi Arabia when Global Justice returned a terrorist to the Saudi authorities.

However, this would be the first time she would attend a head viewing of a friend.

Ron Stoppable was the one who keep peace in central and Eastern Europe. The nations that comprised the former Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact were all quiet because Ron Stoppable nipped problems in the bud.

Now the once quiet area was started to become a headache. There was no one keeping control of the Wild, Wild East.

With Ron Stoppable going rogue, Global Justice lost its espionage network. To set up a new one would take a decade. Any Global Justice agent that worked in Ron's old turf had to be recalled back to Global Justice headquarters for a full background investigation.

The bad guys would return. There was a vacuum of power and they instinctively sought any power vacuum.

Dr. Director traveled under the name of Carmen Whitehall, a community college professor from Madison, Wisconsin playing tourist.

Betty Director hated the flight.

Even in business class, she spent 24 hours in the air or in airports - Denver to Los Angeles to Hawaii to Tokyo to a little region airport. Unlike Tokyo which was use to tourists, nothing in this little airport made sense. No one seemed to speak English and she had a hell of a time using the electronic travel phrase book.

At least the hotel had a decent spa with the hot traditional Japanese bath.

When she returned, she noted that someone went through her things. They were professional. Everything was back in its place, save for a tell-tale fiber she hid in her luggage. The almost invisible fiber was broken when they opened her suitcase.

Dr. Director expected it. Someone would met her here and take her to the viewing.

She had waited two days following the schedule that her contact faxed to her. Dr. Director had enough of nature walks and Japanese gardens for a lifetime and was actually starting to miss life in a concrete and steel building.

A middle-age man was waiting for her.

"Call me Abe Tenaka. Are you here to see the rose?"

He had the password.

"Yes, Mr. Tenaka. Dr. Fujiyama told me that you grew the most fragrant roses in Japan."

The man smiled, "My family name is _Ah-bee_. In Japan it is family name first, your name last. Please forgive me for being straight forward."

Dr. Director quickly picked up on the faux-pas.

"Please forgive my error. I apologize for my unfamiliarity with your customs. Please call me Carmen."

"Do not worry. Once you are away from the tourist hotspots or the American military bases in Okinawa, people tend to be unfamiliar with Americans. However your host has lived in America and will understand if you accidentally forget something. I am your guide. To see the rose, it is a fair hike."

The pine tree covered mountains reminded Dr. Director of Colorado. While the mountains were not as high, she found it hard to recover her breath as the pair worked their way up the mountain. The hike was rough, but her guide instinctively knew when to call a rest break.

On top of the mountain was a temple. Abe walked Dr. Director through the purification rituals, before leading her to a contemplation glade.

Abe introduced her to _Dr. Fujiyama_ before walking away.

Dr. Director was lead to a spot that was roped off. The white gravel was stained with the all too familiar rust-red of old blood.

"This is where Stoppable-san defeated his demons and surrendered his spirit. It is now a sacred place where none shall tread until his soul finds peace. Even when we must 

kill our enemies, we must still respect their power. Since we are here, it is time to pay our final respects."

Dr. Fujiyama led her to a pyre. On the pyre was an all too familiar figure. His blond hair was matted with blood, but even then she recognized the bruised face.

"Ron Stoppable."

"He is dead, just like you paid for."

"I… did not want him to suffer. But he went too far. He had to die."

Fujiyama's face was unreadable.

"You are right. He had to sacrifice himself to save his family. We have taken care of them and they won't ever inconvenience you again. You paid and we delivered."

Dr. Director shuddered at the implications of Fujiyama's statement. _Kim and the children … are dead_.

Dr. Director knew that the bargain she made with the devil had truly been sealed. Killing Ron would have not stopped the threat his children would pose. Even little children grow up and when they grew up…

"Before we commence with the funeral, there are some financial matters we need to discuss. As our guest of honor use to say, _'Lassen Sie uns ein wenig reden.' _Let us have a little chat._"_

The talk was straight business. Dr. Director made a call and the funds were transferred to Fujiyama's account. Once that happen, Fujiyama stood up.

"Carmen Whitehall, or Dr. Betty Director, I am _Keibu_, or Police Inspector Suzuki of the Japanese National Police Public Security Investigation Office. You are under arrest for illegally entering the country under a false identity, bearing counterfeit official documents, making false statements to immigration officers of the Ministry of Justice, making false statement to the customs officials of the Ministry of Finance, failure to declare excessive funds brought into Japan, contracting for a murder for hire, aiding a criminal organization, and conspiracy. Since you did not could under a diplomatic passport this time, you cannot claim diplomatic immunity."

Fujiyama almost smiled.

"That you for enriching the coffers of the Japanese government by sixty million Euros. Too bad that you are going to miss the funeral. But I think that Stoppable-san would be happy that you will pay for your crimes."

Dr. Director couldn't believe what happened even when someone cuffed her and took her to a waiting police car.


	35. Melody's Journal

**World's Best Assassin**

**XXXV – Melody Anne's Journal**

**By Pat Squared

* * *

**

_Today is the twelfth anniversary of my father's death._

_Today is the day that the Children of Vasilii Boiarskii made their presence known to the world._

_We have yet to settle the blood debt that Global Justice incurred, but today we haved started collecting on the interest._

_Global Justice's fiefdom, Pine Ridge Crest, was devastated by the rupture of its main gas line under the school, and the _tragic_ fire that resulted from it._

_The school and homes of those that betrayed my father is no more._

_Over one hundred families shall mourn the lost of their children and loved ones._

_Soon our manifesto shall be released on the world wide web._

_We are the Children of Vasilii Boiarskii;_

_We are honored to have his blood running in our veins;_

_We have a debt of blood to collect from:_

_The hypocritical ones who sold our family into bondage;_

_Those that besmirched our father's honored name;_

_Those that shed his blood;_

_Those that attacked his kin and the ones he loved;_

_To all of these creatures,_

_We have declared an unending blood feud;_

_With them and all their offspring until the last generation;_

_And their friends, family, and neighbors;_

_Even the family pet shall not be spared;_

_Today, the village of Pine Crest Park and Global Justicepaid some of the interest due us;_

_Today, the BBC studios in London paid some of the interest due us;_

_Today, FoxNews studios in New YorkCity paid some of the interest due us;_

_Today, CCN studios in Atlanta, Georgiapaid some of the interest due us;_

_This was just the beginning;_

_However, we will continue to collect until the debt is paid in full._

Melody Anne Stoppable smiled to herself as she readher journal.

Svetlana, Mieko and Mae (Yori's twins), and her younger (but no longer little) brother Ronald Stoppable Junior were all collecting the first payment on this blood-debts around the globe.

In the past, the Stoppable family sacrificed so much to save the world, yet the world spat upon them.

Today, the Boiarskii family was going to show the world it should have never bit the hand that protected it.

Today, the folks at Fox News Studios were going to get a fuel air explosive love note, courtesy of Melody Anne Stoppable. It would bebeautiful - a mini-mushroom cloud without the associated hazards of radioactive fallout. All it took was a couple tanker trucks loaded with homemade FAE gel.

Melody Anne Stoppable watched from a distance with a smile as the price of New York real estate hit rock bottom. Mushroom shaped clouds do have that kind of effect.

THE END


End file.
